The Eighth Doctor Adventures
by Edoe
Summary: Once upon a time, there was a man called the Doctor. And this is his life, from unyielding love and heartbreaking loss, to closest family and deadliest enemies. The Eighth Doctor is an engima to the Doctor Who universe - but these are his adventures, life breathed into them as you have never seen before.
1. Foreword

" _She left the swing – Lizzie always loved swings, her childhood-self had found them comforting. Now, she glanced behind her to see it rocking slowly in the breeze. Through the warm, summer, evening air she strode. The Doctor was inside, waiting for her, ready to dance around the console again, and ready to rediscover good again. They had the whole of the universe ahead of them, tens of hundreds of thousands of millions of billions of stars and times and worlds and galaxies, all within the doors of the box. She was right outside the box now, with all of that ahead of her._

 _Elizabeth Darwin took one last look at the town she called home._

 _She stepped._

 _Their lives began again._ "

 **Foreword**

 _The Eighth Doctor Adventures_ is a retelling of the life of the Eighth Doctor, a character who, through various conflicting expanded universe accounts, has a convoluted timeline. It was this enigma that attracted writer Janine Rivers to the character, where she wrote the first four spectacular seasons of _The Eighth Doctor Adventures_ , telling Doctor Who in a revolutionary way by which it had never been done so before. However, time came for Janine to move on, so she left the series to me, where I have been continuing it from Series 5.

The break between our two eras is similar to the Davies/Moffat change – they are largely completely different epochs, and so one can start with Series 5 with very little prior knowledge of the series, hence my willingness to post Series 5 onwards on this site and broaden its readership further. The series is also uploaded here ( without spaces: doctorwhofanfic. weebly ), a much smaller fanfiction community dedicated to Doctor Who, one which I currently edit. It is on this site where one can find Series 1-4 of the series, as well as a multitude of other stories.

 _The Eighth Doctor Adventures_ relies on original companions, but all with the Eighth Doctor, along with various villains and locations known through _Doctor Who_. It is intended to bridge the gap between the _TV Movie,_ and _The Night of the Doctor_. Because of this, the show ignores most established Eighth Doctor canon, instead choosing to develop its own stuff or adopt elements.

As I said, Series 5 can be read without reading Series 1-4, but for background information, reading _The Story So Far_ might be useful.


	2. The Story So Far

**Series One** **  
**  
Series One begins with the Doctor's first encounter with Robin Moon (Suranne Jones), at Christmas. Robin is still reeling from the events of two years earlier, when she lost her husband, Harry, and her son, Tommy, in a brutal car accident just before Christmas. The Doctor teaches her to love Christmas again, and more importantly to embrace her life, after taking her back in time to see her son one last time. He invites her aboard the TARDIS.

They travel together for a while, but their adventures are soon cut short, when the Doctor's carelessness inadvertently causes the death of one of Robin's best friends at the hands of the Cybermen. Robin is furious at the Doctor, and storms out of the TARDIS, turning back to alcohol. But they are soon reunited, when an alien invasion brings them back together. Robin decides not to continue travelling with him, but does forgive him for what happened, and they part on peaceful terms.

During the same invasion, the Doctor meets Autumn Rivers (Natalie Dormer). Autumn has disguised herself as a generic alien prisoner, in what appears to be a prison ship, floating through space – but this is not really the case. After many adventures together, Autumn reveals herself to the Doctor: she is his judge, jury, and executioner.

Series One introduces us to the Planet Makers. The Planet Makers are a corporation run by a man called Staligon on the great ship _Epicurus_ , who create planets for commercial purposes, in the Eighth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. During this period of human history, the Krynoid have evolved to become known as the Plant – a carnivorous plant species capable of infecting and wiping out whole planets, as well as spreading from planet to planet. In a desperate bid to end their conquest, the Planet Makers sanction the destruction of a number of their own planets – a move which is approved, reluctantly by the Doctor.  
Autumn Rivers is the lone survivor of one of the planets destroyed by the Planet Makers. When the Plant infested her world, she was forced to kill her mother to stop her becoming a Krynoid, and drugged her father to forget her. As a forensic psychologist, she was hired to go back in time and track down the members of the Planet Makers' committee and neutralise them, to stop them from passing the vote to wipe out their planet. The time machine misfired, sending Autumn forwards rather than backwards, and her planet was destroyed.

Autumn tracked down the Doctor and became his companion, blackmailing him anonymously to "Repent".

The Doctor does not, and refuses to discuss anything with Autumn, so she makes a deal with the Daleks. She will be allowed to keep the TARDIS, if she in return hands over the Doctor. She does this, and the Doctor spends four years in a Dalek Prison Camp, from which he incurs severe post-traumatic stress disorder.

After the Doctor manages to escape, in fury at the Daleks he bombs their parliament, destroying any semblance of order in a hope to wipe them out once and for all. However, he still believes that he was wrong to vote for the Planet Makers' genocide, and seeks to make amends with Autumn.

The TARDIS turns against Autumn, and sends her to the end of its timeline. She steps out onto Trenzalore. The Doctor, with only a vortex manipulator, asks Robin to join him in finding and saving Autumn. She accepts.

Notable stories:  
 _Miracle on Oxford Street_ \- the Doctor meets Robin for the first time  
 _Peacepoint_ \- Robin leaves the TARDIS after the death of her friend  
 _Earthstop/Sunset Forever_ – the Doctor meets Autumn for the first time, and makes peace with Robin  
 _Bigger on the Inside_ – Autumn's backstory is revealed, and she takes control of the TARDIS  
 _Extermination of the Daleks_ – the Doctor's time in the Dalek prison camp and his bombing of the parliament

 **The 2015 Specials** **  
**  
The 2015 Specials are a mostly isolated set of stories.

 _Shattered Time_ is an anniversary special for a variety of different fan-fiction series', and sees the Doctor reunited with Autumn. With Robin, he arrives on Trenzalore, and stops Autumn killing his future self by showing her, through a psychic interface, the truth about her homeworld. The Doctor was not directly responsible for the genocide, but instead voted on behalf of his companion, Valerie (an android he created after he stopped risking humans by his side). After the vote, the Doctor stopped creating androids, realising he had made a terrible mistake.

Autumn appears to accept this, and agrees to travel with the Doctor again. Robin is returned home. But Autumn is not as sincere as she seems – she returns to her benefactor, Lord Dalta, and explains that she plans to crush the Doctor once and for all…

 _Run_ is an isolated story, a monologue by the Doctor about his recovery from PTSD, which addresses the events of the Series One finale from his perspective.  
 _Rebirth_ is a one-off special featuring the Brigadier and the Master.

 _The Doctor Dyad_ is a one-off special set later in the Eighth Doctor's timeline.

 _The Infestation_ sees Robin return to the Doctor for a Christmas in the TARDIS. At the end, the Doctor discovers Autumn's secret, and vows to take revenge on her: this time, he's had enough. She leaves using the vortex manipulator, and begins her plan.

 _On Air_ is the final special, which sees Autumn's plan come to fruition. It transpires that, in fact, she was on the Doctor's side ever since Trenzalore, and was instead plotting against Lord Dalta – who, she discovered from the psychic episode, was there when her planet was destroyed, and only helped her to kill the other members of the committee to cover up his own involvement. She exposes Lord Dalta live on stage, and explains to the Doctor why it was that she had to keep this a secret. They embrace, and agree to start anew.

Notable stories:  
 _Shattered Time_ – the anniversary special  
 _Rebirth_ – the Master's first (and corniest) appearance in _The Eighth Doctor Adventures_  
 _On Air_ – the Doctor and Autumn are reunited at last

 **Series Two** **  
**  
Series Two sees the introduction of new companion Tommy (who happens to share a first name with Robin's late son) Lindsay (Andrew Garfield). Tommy is a Classics student from King's College London. He is kind, compassionate, and unashamedly political, always one to stick up for the underdog. After a very amicable break-up with his girlfriend, Natalie, he joins the Doctor and Autumn on-board the TARDIS, after it deliberately, for reasons unknown, draws him in.  
Things have changed since the first series. Robin is now engaged to Chris McKnight (Douglas Henshall), head-teacher of the school she works at (as a pastoral support worker) – Coal Hill!

In the first episode of the series, the Master returns, carrying a code which, according to the people who are after it, is the most advanced piece of programming in the universe. Autumn, in an act of revenge, forces him to swallow the code on its memory stick and leaves him stranded on an alien planet. Autumn has made a copy of the code, however, and the Doctor spends the series attempting to decipher it.

Robin decides to begin travelling with the Doctor again (and unbeknownst to him, she is pregnant), joined by her husband, alongside Tommy and Autumn. These adventures are cut short when, whilst caught up in a dangerous incident in a future civilisation, Robin is severely beaten and loses her unborn child. Heartbroken, she decides to stop travelling with the Doctor, but does not hold it against him. She takes him on one last trip, this time with her, to Barcelona, where they say goodbye. They still plan to see each other, but never to travel together again.

The Doctor tragically and unexpectedly loses Autumn when she is tricked into consuming a poisonous alien fuel by a mad old woman. This was because she thought she was being offered immortality. Still terrified of death, Autumn flees, and discovers the Destiny Institute, a place in the Eighth Great and Bountiful Human Empire dedicated to researching immortality. She manages to preserve her body in ice, whilst continuing to dream of a life she never lived.

By this time, the Master has had his body ripped open so that other races can retrieve the code. In an act of retribution against Autumn, he finds her body and kills her, ruining any chance she ever had of living forever. He falls down dead next to her, and is killed once and for all, entering the Matrix with other dead Time Lords.

It is now, searching desperately for meaning in a cruel and meaningless universe, that the Doctor finally meets God (Richard Attenborough), and discovers that the code was a machine code advanced enough to create human life.

God was a creation of the Eighth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. At risk of becoming extinct during the worst terror crisis in history, government officials decided to use their advanced programming technology to create a real-life God to convert all people to the same religion and unify beliefs. But this went more than a little wrong when their God became omnipotent, and ended up being responsible for the universe's creation anyway, after hijacking the Prime Mover, a kind of spiritual matter at the heart of the universe.

God is, sadly, not the loving creator the Doctor hoped for. He agrees, benevolently, to save Autumn by allowing her to reincarnate into another being. But after the Doctor critiques his abuse of power, God becomes stubborn and obstinate. He refuses to tell the Doctor who Autumn was reincarnated into, and decides to "embrace free will", to the extent of doing nothing with his powers at all, which includes an adamant refusal to share any knowledge with the Doctor. Angry, aware that he is unable to fight an omnipotent being, and bitter at human civilisation for leading to his creation, the Doctor silently watches Robin's wedding, drops Tommy off at home, and retreats to the depths of his TARDIS.

Notable stories:  
 _The Magic Box_ – Tommy Lindsay is introduced and the Master returns  
 _A Shop For Limbs/Material Values_ – the new TARDIS team is formed  
 _The Cloud Beneath The Sea_ – Robin's miscarriage  
 _Wish You Were Here_ – Robin decides to stop travelling with the Doctor  
 _A Castle Deep in the Woods/In Slumber Repose_ – Autumn becomes terminally ill and leaves the TARDIS  
 _Under Ice_ – the Master kills Autumn  
 _Waking the Witch_ – short one-hander – the Master dies  
 _The Morning Fog_ – Autumn is reincarnated and the Doctor meets God  
 _The Dying Detective_ – spin-off series; prequel to _Under Ice_ and prelude to Series Three

 **Series Three** **  
**  
Series Three is the only series of _The Eighth Doctor Adventures_ to be fully serialised, and is five episodes long.

This series sees the introduction and exit of new companion Sasha Ramachandran (Priyanka Chopra), the brief introduction of new companion Jasmine Sparks (Emily Blunt), and the temporary return of both Robin McKnight and Tommy Lindsay.

It has been three years since the Doctor's friends last saw him, and they still puzzle over the strange events which led to their departures. Tommy is now completing a politics degree, having had a change of heart about his career plans, whilst Robin is struggling with depression after coming to terms with her infertility (after the damage caused to her during the miscarriage) and being denied the right to adopt after her psychological history and alcoholic tendencies are reviewed.

Robin is given a mysterious package through her door, called a GENIE box. She leaves it in the dining room. Whilst chatting with her husband, she says she wishes she could have a baby (without being aware of the box's presence). The next morning she discovers, impossibly, that she is pregnant.

The Doctor returns to Earth after encountering Sasha Ramachandran in a shared dream, where they were tested on in the Destiny Institute. This is all part of warped and convoluted plan by the Master (now Daisy Ridley), who is the new chairwoman of the institute.

The Master is dead, but is able to move through the world of dreams from within the Matrix. She has taken on a female form, as, in a virtual landscape, she has free choice over her appearance. Throughout the series, she taunts the Doctor about the truth of Autumn Rivers, lying to him on numerous occasions and claiming that Autumn's reincarnated form died in the womb.

The Doctor also lies, pretending not to care about Robin so as to save her from the Master's wicked plans. Robin only realises this when Sasha tells her, but by then it is too late: the Doctor has sacrificed himself by alerting the Time Lords of the Master's activities, and is dead. A shrine is made for him on Primrose Hill, Robin's home and the place they first met.

Thankfully, Sasha is able to save him, by returning to him in a dream state and in the process confronting her own childhood insecurities. The Doctor thanks her, and moves on. He is now no longer angry at the people of Earth, and does not hold them responsible for the creation of God in the future – this is, to his mind, hypocritical, as it is the same thing he has accused God of (holding the son responsible for the sins of the father). He returns to Robin, who has now given birth to her son, Gabriel. She wishes that he will be happy and loved for the rest of his life.

The Doctor becomes aware of the presence of the GENIE box in the room, and examines it curiously. He is unsure of whether or not it works, but tells Robin to make a third wish. He says it's okay – she can wish for her son, Tommy Moon, to return from the dead, as she has more than earned that right. Instead, as an act of thanks, she wishes that the Doctor be reunited with Autumn Rivers.

The Doctor is called, in that exact moment, by Jasmine Sparks, who claims to be Autumn's reincarnation. The Doctor promises to find her.

[All five episodes are part of the same wider story, and therefore must be read together. No one is more notable than the rest, though _The Final Wish of Robin Moon_ , the finale, can be read in isolation if required.]

 **Series Four  
**

[It is recommended that you read this series in full if at all possible.]

At the start of the series, the Doctor is missing. Again, things have changed back on Earth. After the large-scale devastation across London during the Master's plan, the city is in the process of being rebuilt, and is in a time of economic hardship. Robin is still working at Coal Hill, but now as a stand-in English teacher, in the absence of a full staffing team. After the deaths of the majority of the members of parliament, Tommy has become a left-wing political activist, whose campaign is rallying some support.

The Doctor has, it turns out, returned to Gallifrey, leaving Earth in the lurch. On Gallifrey, events are not going well. The Doctor's destruction of the Dalek parliament ended up worsening the Dalek threat, and now it seems a war is inevitable. The President asks the Doctor for help when a highly-advanced artificial intelligence, Eris, infiltrates the Matrix. The Doctor enters the Matrix with Jasmine (who he now appears to be travelling with), and meets the Time Lady prophet Kassandra, his memory being wiped several times along the way to protect the data inside the Matrix. Kassandra anticipates the Time War, and fears that the people of the Matrix will be revived to fight in it. It turns out that the whole thing was a trap – the President was tricked into summoning the Doctor here so that Eris kills him inside the Matrix. The President is assassinated, and the Doctor manages to leave, returning to London. He knows he destroyed Eris, but he cannot remember how. Back on Galllifrey, Rassilon becomes the new president, and the Time War begins.

Back on Earth, a future incarnation of the Doctor (Keeley Hawes) stepped in and saved them from the threat at hand by committing genocide against the alien invaders. Her friends are shocked and appalled, but cannot tell the Doctor (Paul McGann) when he returns as he must not know of this future incarnation.

There are some concerns about Robin's health, after the invaders do not attempt to take her after she fails a health test and is declared useless to them, but she pushes these aside, saying they are irrelevant. Jasmine invites Tommy to join them again, and taking to her instantly, agrees.

The Doctor, plagued by anxiety about the Time War, God, and his own place in the universe, makes a number of terrible mistakes. He creates a whole universe by accident, and goes a step further, also setting up an organised religion which ends up taking thousands of lives. Tommy berates him for this, but ends up forgiving him. He decides to leave the TARDIS anyway, and pursue his political career. He realises that he has fallen in love with Jasmine, just as he did with Autumn, and they share a kiss.

The Doctor reveals to Jasmine the reason the TARDIS was attracted to Tommy in the first place: he has a massive historical influence, and is going to become the Prime Minister of Great Britain, in an age of prosperity and equality. Jasmine continues to travel with the Doctor.

Jasmine's backstory is revealed. She is a teenager from Croydon, raised by her adoptive grandmother, Sheila who became aware that she was a reincarnation of Autumn Rivers in 2010, when recognising a piece of music from her previous life. Jasmine is a much softer character than Autumn – she still has the occasional tendency to lie and manipulate, but only to soothe trauma and help others. She is very wise for her age, the effect of living two lives, but struggles with her personal identity. She believes that she is a vessel for Autumn's memories but, crucially, that she is not Autumn Rivers – she is her own person, and, she believes, Autumn is dead.

Before Jasmine met the Doctor, she was told of the death of her biological father, who worked for a UNIT scientific research project in an observatory in Hawaii. He killed himself and the rest of his crew. Jasmine joined the team, keen to discover why this happened, and spent a number of months with them. Their findings were inconclusive. She learnt of the Doctor's survival, and had a watch placed on Robin's house. This was how she was able to call him; she was informed when he returned to Primrose Hill, and called Robin's home phone while she had the opportunity.

The Doctor and Jasmine return to Gallifrey, in a fight to the death against the Master. Jasmine finds herself battered and bruised, and is forced to kill to survive. The Master (who refers to Jasmine as 'Autumn') acknowledges that Jasmine won this battle, but that she will see her in Hell, as it is where Autumn was always destined to go. The Doctor drops a furious Jasmine off at home, telling her that he owes it to her – there are, he tells her, "no monsters on Earth". The Doctor continues his adventures, and following a battle with the Cybermen, he meets God again, who tells him that he is "ready" to see "the truth", and takes him to Heaven

Back on Earth, Jasmine reunites with Tommy, and they begin their romance proper. However, it is brought to a tragic end when Tommy is stabbed and murdered in the street. In their grief, the Doctor arrives back on Earth to see Jasmine, and decides that they must bring Tommy back.

He takes her to Heaven, the 'truth' that God promised to show the Doctor, a dimension where the dead live forever happy through Nanogenes keeping them at optimum health. However, the Time Lords, in one of the earliest acts of the Time War, allow for other worlds to be plundered for the good of the war, causing the Daleks to lead an assault upon Heaven. God, absorbed in fury, declares his superiority over the universe, condemning a Time Lord soldier to Hell, the one remaining afterlife.

Meanwhile, in another world, where we all live different lives, Jasmine Sparks is on holiday with her grandmother. On her way home, they are rolled back onto a later flight. However, in the airport, she meets a man called Tommy Lindsay, and perhaps they will fall in love. It is too late, though, when their plane takes off, and God appears on the plane, shooting Tommy. He reveals that their universe is a mirror universe, just one of an infinite number that he has created to observe all possible outcomes of every situation. Jasmine swears that in her true universe, she will stop God. God responds by crashing the plane…

Back in the real universe, the Doctor and Jasmine debate as to whether they should pursue their final battle against God, who has sent a plague to Earth, wiping out a tenth of a population, and the number is increasing, encompassing old friends. God takes the decision to destroy the whole universe - however, the Doctor and Jasmine agree that this is a war they must fight. So they begin their journey to Hell…

In Hell, suffering occurs forever, with Nanogenes keeping everyone on the edge of life, condemning all inhabitants to torture for all eternity. There, God leads the Doctor and Jasmine to a room containing a looking-glass, which contains God's mirror universes. Not only this, but it is revealed Hell contains a core where other universes, containing more superior beings to God, are held, ensuring God's omnipotence. It is here that God forces Noa, one of his 'playthings', to shoot Jasmine, killing her. All hope seems lost for the Doctor, until he stands at the edge of Hell, and suddenly, it begins to snow. Hell has frozen over.

In God's mirror universe, where a version of Jasmine Sparks met Tommy Lindsay at an airport, the crashing plane is saved. In the mirror universe, alternate versions of old friends, led by one of the Doctor's oldest friends of all, Autumn Rivers, come together to create Eris, the AI who infiltrated the Matrix. Though the Doctor forgot what happened to Eris, it transpires he allowed Eris to infiltrate the Prime Mover, God's source of energy. Soon, God's omnipotence begins to fall apart, and eventually, Noa kills God. The final blow is dealt when Jasmine, on the edge of death, crawls to the looking-glass and destroys it, truly ending God's reign.

Jasmine wakes up in her flat, and she sees Autumn Rivers sat opposite her. They join hands, and head for the door, leaving life, and entering the next.

Notable stories:  
 _Home Truths/Bad Blood_ – the start of the Time War, and the introduction of the Hawes Doctor  
 _Pillars of Fire_ – Tommy leaves the TARDIS  
 _Hello Earth_ – Jasmine's backstory is revealed  
 _Darksong/Dancers on a String_ – the Doctor forces Jasmine to leave the TARDIS

 _The Next Life, Paradise Found, Departures, The Night We Died_ and _The Day We Lived_ form a quintilogy detailing the Doctor and Jasmine's battle against God, and so it is recommended the final five stories of the series are read together.

 **The 2016 specials  
**

In the aftermath of the battle, the Doctor is unwillingly taken to a Time Lord safe house in 1714 Barcelona to be protected from Time Lord and Dalek exploitation. He unwillingly stays after realising that he doesn't have his TARDIS. On his first day, he meets Cioné, an eccentric woman with an obsession with the glowfly species. The two quickly become friends, and fall in love. When the Daleks infiltrate the safe house and kill all the residing Time Lords, the pair quickly escape and find themselves in 2016 Barcelona, where the Doctor reunites with Robin Moon and, to his surprise, his TARDIS! It had been in Robin's garden for a while, and she knew that he would come looking eventually. Realising that she's fallen for the Doctor, Cioné confesses that she was a spy of Rassilon, an exchange for the conscription that she never wanted. The Doctor confesses that he always knew about her ploy, and played along with the Time Lords' games anyway. With the secrets behind them, the Doctor proposes to Cioné, who happily accepts. The pair marry in space with their friends surrounding them, but the happiness doesn't last. The Doctor and Robin Moon mutually part ways for the final time, and Cioné decides to travel across the universe as her very own doctor and help the wounded left behind in warzones. The Doctor is happy for them both, but coupled with his previous losses, it saddens him as well. He spends one last moment with Robin, reliving their first meeting, and then his adventure begins again.

Meanwhile, far in the future, when the Eighth Doctor is long dead, Jasmine Sparks finds herself alone on an empty desert planet, with only a house for shelter, a computer to keep her entertained and a food synthesiser to keep her fed. She spends decades of her life there until she is taken to Gallifrey to meet with the Time Lords. They employ her for a mission: stop the Hawes Doctor from rewriting the dying universe to her own desires. Jasmine initially accepts the mission, but after reuniting with her old friend, staunchly rejects it. She meets with her nan, Sheila, once more before joining the Doctor on her mission. They find the object of their mission - a quantum crystalliser, but it does not accept the Doctor as its holder. They realise the true bearer is Jasmine, who accepts and ascends to a higher plane of existence after one last goodbye.

Notable Stories:

 _Till Death Us Do Part (Parts 1 and 2)_ \- Introduction of Cioné, the Doctor's wedding, and the final goodbye of Robin Moon.

It is also strongly reccomended that you read _An Endless Sky of Honey_ and _Ever After_ , because they form the final two stories of the Janine Rivers era of _The Eighth Doctor Adventures_ and answer many unanswered questions. However, as they are set far after the Eighth Doctor's life, they have little bearing on following series and so are not essential.


	3. 501 Half the World Away

_Then, she began to breathe and live,_

 _and every moment took her to a place where goodbyes were hard to come by._

 _she was in love, but not in love with someone or something, she was in love with her life._

 _and for the first time, in a long time,_

 _everything was inspiring._

\- R. M. Drake.

* * *

 **Prologue**

Lizzie sat on a chair that was probably a bit too big for a six-year-old, since her feet couldn't touch the ground and were left dangling in the air. She was watching the sunlight streaming in through the window, fascinated with how it made the buckles on her shoes glimmer and shine. Jenny had told her to put on these shoes on because they were her best pair, and they made her look 'smart.' This was the same Jenny that called her Elizabeth, so Lizzie thought she was a bit posh and didn't like puppies or ice cream or fun.

Lizzie watched her shoes because she didn't want to look out the window – all the other children were playing outside, in the afternoon summer sun, and she wanted nothing more than to join in, but she wasn't allowed. She thought it was probably Jenny's way of being nasty to her, because it didn't make any sense – she hadn't done anything wrong. Even though this wasn't her real home, Lizzie still liked the other children, but she didn't always join in. Sometimes they just didn't want her.

The office was dusty, and Lizzie watched as the particles of dust floated and fell through the air. She reached out to touch them, but they flew just out of reach whenever she tried. Eventually, she gave up and slumped backwards in the chair, bored, and waiting for Jenny to come back and tell her why she had to sit here alone.

The door opened, and Jenny walked in. She looked down upon Lizzie, as if Lizzie were an alien. She had not come alone.

"Elizabeth – this is Maggie. She wants to talk with you."

Lizzie had learned that there wouldn't be any point in replying. Whatever Jenny wanted would happen anyway, so she waited, in silence.

The woman who pulled up a chair opposite her was older than Jenny. Lizzie liked her patterned cardigan. Unlike Jenny, this lady didn't talk to her as if she were stupid.

"Hello Lizzie," Maggie smiled at her. "How are you?"

"I'm good," Lizzie replied, still slightly unsettled by how friendly this woman called Maggie was being. "How are you?"

The only reason she responded that way was because that's what adults told her to say.

"I'm very well, thank you. Have you been enjoying the sunny weather?"

"It's alright," Lizzie said. "I can go and play outside then. But I like the rain too."

"Do you?"

"Without rain – things wouldn't grow."

The woman-called-Maggie hesitated for a second. "Yes – well done. Now – what sort of things do you like doing, Lizzie?"

"Erm… I like television and I like music, and also like to read lots of books. Also, I like dogs, but only small ones. The big ones are scary. I like cats more than dogs. They're nicer and we get along better."

"Now then, Lizzie. My name is Maggie – and, I can't be sure, but someone tells me that you're a bit sad."

 **THE EIGHTH DOCTOR ADVENTURES**

 **SERIES 5 - EPISODE 1**

 **HALF THE WORLD AWAY**

 **WRITTEN BY ED GOUNDREY-SMITH**

"Hello?"

Lizzie was jolted awake from her daydream.

"Oh – er – I am so sorry, Mrs Smith."

She stood up quickly, because she wasn't particularly up for losing her job.

"Away with the fairies again, Elizabeth?"

To be fair, to kill hours of boredom, yes, she had been away with the fairies. Her boss (not Mrs Smith) tended to leave her to it, while he went off and did whatever it was the people like him did. It meant that Lizzie saw the inside of the café more than anything else, due to the fact that, barring the girl who came in for a Saturday job, she was the café's sole fulltime employee.

"Something like that. What can I get for you, Mrs Smith?"

"My usual, please."

She knew exactly what that "usual" was, due to the fact she served it to Mrs. Smith every Wednesday morning at about half ten-ish, give or take the cooperation of Mrs Smith's springer spaniels. Her tea would require just a 'dribble' of milk, and a slice of carrot cake to go with it.

Since Mrs Smith also pulled a blinder of a question with each visit to the café, Lizzie awaited, with bated breath, for said question to arise.

"So, Elizabeth."

Here we go.

"What are you going to do with your life?"

And there it was. Mrs Smith knew it irritated her, and yet she always posed the same question every single time. Lizzie resented her enquiries for a number of reasons:

It was as if Mrs Smith were deliberately trying to make her feel guilty about something she couldn't do anything about, and…

… if Mrs Smith actually cared about "Elizabeth's" situation, she might understand that perhaps the vote Mrs Smith took part in every 5 years at the polls was not helping "Elizabeth" at all. And, furthermore…

Mrs Smith was renowned for being particularly harsh on anyone from the estate, where she knew Lizzie lived.

"I don't know yet, Mrs Smith," she replied as she poured Mrs Smith's tea into the mug, and then added in the 'dribble of milk'. Lizzie had decided, as her boss had suggested, to at least attempt small talk, since her customer service skills were 'significantly lacking'. The idea was repulsive to Lizzie but she soldiered on. Luckily, she knew the way to Mrs. Smith's heart: "How are your dogs?"

After spending so long watching this particular middle class wife of a doctor, who instead of drinking from the fountain of eternal youth, seemed to drink from the fountain of eternal 60-something, Lizzie had realised that Mrs Smith rather liked dogs. Lizzie was more of a cat person herself.

Not unexpectedly Mrs Smith responded with great enthusiasm! "Well, I had to take Jasper to the vets. He required some inoculations. And Peter is as feisty as ever. He's so tricky to take for a walk, goes straight for the pheasants! But it's always worth it! I do love him."

"There we go," Lizzie passed over the mug, doing her best not-real-smile. "Call me over if you need anything."

Lizzie partly said this last bit just to wind her up, knowing full well that Mrs Smith would desire nothing more than to call her over and complain about something petty, while expressing her profound concern about Lizzie allowing her standards to slip.

"I will," nodded Mrs. Smith, a grim look on her face, as she withdrew to the corner by the window where she could see her dogs. Lizzie pitied anyone who might attempt to sit in Mrs Smith's corner seat. It had become her territory, her place, and no one else would dare even attempt to annex it from her, no matter how unwittingly.

Lizzie had grown accustomed to the habits and behaviours of each of her café regulars. She knew their orders – what they ate, what they drank, whether they took milk or sugar– and whether they would come in pairs, or alone. In fact, for a lowly waitress who merely poured the tea and coffee, and cut and served the cake, Lizzie was privy to more knowledge than perhaps she should be. People gave away a lot more during everyday conversation than they realized. Not that any of it was of particular concern to her – but still….

It was a nice little tea room. Lizzie would even have gone so far as to say that if she didn't spend so many waking hours in here, she would love it. It was a cosy little shop, its walls hung with framed paintings of pretty country scenes, of the harvest, and of shooting parties, in either watercolour or oil. An eclectic assortment of ornaments decorated its oak shelves as well as the mantelpiece of an unused fireplace. The shop's entire trade came from customers shopping in the little market town.

Lizzie realized rather quickly after she started working here that she spent so much of her time just doing nothing. She was often left alone with her teacakes; left alone to find some way of occupying herself.

Sometimes she loved that part of it.

Sometimes she just wanted to get out.

* * *

5 o'clock eventually came.

She then set the alarm, installed a few years back, stepped out into the evening air, and locked the door behind her. It was summer, and the weather was warm and sleepy, like the town itself. Dunsworth was not the sort of place for anyone looking for thrills and exhilaration. There was a bus stop, just down the street, where you could catch a bus that went right up to the edge of the estate. It was a bus she could take, but rarely did because she enjoyed the walk; it wasn't far.  
Dunsworth was dotted with small cafés, and boutiques, and general gift shops for anyone who came to enjoy the typical middle England life, with an old castle looking down from on the top of the hill. Dunsworth had been twinned with a town in Germany and another in Italy. Recently, it had won the "Britain in Bloom" competition three years in a row, and another five wins before that. There were a number of retired couples who lived there, and some young families whose dad was likely a banker in the city or whose mum babysat for the lord of the manor. They all lived quietly, and contentedly.

It was quiet. Except – not always. Because there was…the estate.

Lizzie's former home, once situated on the outskirts of Dunsworth, was no longer on the outskirts of Dunsworth. Seven years ago, the council had made the decision to build a council estate there instead.

The council would've gotten a friendlier reaction had they decided to kick a nest of very angry wasps.

There was an immediate uproar from the legions of pensioners. Lizzie, at the time, was still in school, still hating school, and remembered it well. There were protests….well, not really protests, more like a few disgruntled elderly ladies who stood outside the library, holding hand- painted protest signs. There was rioting… well, again, not really rioting, more a matter of angry planning in the café. There were petitions and there were letters to the council. The council retorted with a perfectly understandable response: They needed housing. There wasn't enough of it.

It was at this point that Lizzie first began to dislike the residents of Dunsworth and had not-so-fervently celebrated when she finally left to study history at Durham. The care home where she had grown up was delighted for her; her teachers were delighted.

Student life, it transpired, was not for her. The endless partying was nauseating.

However, it seemed you can do whatever you want at university and there's usually no positive outcome when you graduate. Ever. No jobs. At all. Especially for people with history degrees. It was because of this non-positive outcome, that Lizzie had come back to stay in the town she'd grown up in and, after getting the job in the café, had found asylum in one of the properties on the estate. It was only meant to be a temporary measure until something better came up.

But nothing better had come up.

She would stand at the edge of the valley – there was a sort of observational area, fenced off, where one could sit on a bench, and look out into the distance. The view was beautiful, and it was possible to sit there and watch the sunset, over fields and distant cottages and great tall oak trees.

Even when there seemed like there would never be a chance to escape her present existence, she could come here and dream for ten minutes, before she had to return to her reality.

She stopped this particular evening, and sat for five minutes, letting the rest of the world pass her by. She could do that– just sit, and drink in the view before her each evening after work. The sunsets were always magical. Now June had passed, and the nights would start to draw in a little earlier, meaning she could look forward to that magic more and more, especially after long and pointless days at work.

On this evening, only five minutes passed and Lizzie left the bench earlier than usual. She wanted to pay someone a visit.

* * *

Lizzie still had a key to the house where she had grown up, because now as a "responsible" adult, she was always the one on cat feeding duty and plant watering duty whenever Maggie went away, which was rare, but occasionally she'd go and stay with her children.

The hallway was cramped – all the houses on the estate were small, and the flats were even smaller. A staircase led upstairs, and after one of Maggie's hearty meals, one would have to breathe in deeply to get past the chest of drawers on the way through the hallway and into the kitchen.

Lizzie hung up her coat, and walked through into the kitchen, where Maggie stood fiddling with the oven.

"Oh, hello!" Maggie called over. "Just putting the tea on. Do you want some, or will you be off?" Maggie murmured. "Honestly, this oven is five years old and I still can't figure out how to – oh. There we go."

"Now. Sit down," she said to Lizzie, while bustling about the kitchen. "I'll put the kettle on."

"No, I'll do it," Lizzie offered, walking past her.

"Elizabeth, sit down. You spend enough time making tea, let me do it. I hate thinking of you in that godawful café all day."

Lizzie was okay with Maggie calling her Elizabeth because she would do it in a friendly way whenever jokily telling her off; it was kind of heart-warming and made Lizzie smile.

"You're going to go insane," Maggie told her, as she bustled around the kitchen with the tea bags.

"It won't be long before I lose it."

"You'll find something better. You deserve to, at least."

"I did three years in university and I've got like –," she sighed. "I'm tens of thousands of pounds in debt. Nobody needs people who've just graduated and have 'no experience'."

"But you're intelligent! Even if you have no experience, as you say, there'd be people wanting to snap you up. I just can't believe the current state of things. I swear it's nigh on impossible to get work nowadays. When I was young…"

As Lizzie listened, she was feeling a tangled mix of emotions, most of them guilt-related, or just general panic and anxiety about how she was wasting her life. She longed to be out, travelling the world, walking across mountains, and deserts, and swimming near coral reefs, and doing whatever it was that well-travelled people did, like the things her Facebook friends did. But she was stuck, as if the universe were conspiring to stop her from doing any of that stuff, while at the same time it seemed to be reaping her of every penny she had. And, she acknowledged, she was increasingly anxious about all this anxiety and was spending some Sunday mornings (the café wasn't open on Sundays – an overly religious community and all that) lying in bed and not doing anything useful at all.

"It's that flat as well," Maggie continued. "It's tiny, and it's in such a rough part of the estate. You know, I'd have you stay here, but the system won't have it. Honestly, I can understand why you're so anti-THEM. But 'improper' they said! Improper. You've been out of the system for years, and Mikey moved out last month. I haven't been alone here for 40 years, and I think I'm going to go doolally if I start now. You are all that keeps me from losing my marbles."

Maggie stopped, and sat down opposite her. Lizzie looked up from the table and into the old woman's eyes. Maggie had seen so much and Lizzie always felt as if she were being a burden.

"But I'd rather lose my marbles than hold you back. You're special. I always said so to that care worker. You're the most intelligent child I've ever worked with. No, not just intelligent. Understanding. So, I want you to go out, and live a bit."

"It's not that I don't want to. It's just – I can't. Things are –"

"I know. Money. It's annoying, isn't it? That, and, of course, you're so nervous."

She always loved Maggie for being so straight to the point.

"I've been there," Maggie took a sip of her tea. "When my mother dropped me off in my own flat for the first time, she helped me unpack everything, and then suddenly said 'Bye then' and was off. And I sat there alone on my sofa, this old thing we'd been keeping in the attic for years. For a few seconds, I was fine, just like being left on my own of an afternoon. Then, it hit me. She wasn't coming back. Suddenly, it was very quiet and very cold. And I was alone. Oh – Lizzie, I know your worries almost as well as I know my own. I've been privy to them since you were a little girl. You were such a sad little thing, and I look at you now, and sometimes I think you're not any different. I know how you're feeling. But there is something you need to remember: you're never alone. Not really. If everyone vanished from the Earth – there'll always be someone here, for you and with you."

Maggie had been Lizzie's support worker since she was 6 years old. Nowadays, it wasn't anything formal, but Lizzie still stopped by every so often for a cup of tea and a chat. Maggie was an incredible woman, and the closest thing Lizzie had to a mother. She treated the children she worked with as if they were her own, and all of them treated her like a mum.

* * *

It was getting dark as Lizzie arrived back home.

There were two women, probably high or drunk or something, and they stood at the end of the road, catcalling and giggling, waving vigorously at her as she walked past. She smiled at them before turning the key into the rusty lock, pressing against the door with her foot (it would often stick, and require an extra bit of force) and making her way inside.

Her flat was indeed tiny, as Maggie continued to point out. But it was home, at least. Her front door opened up against stacks of books – there wasn't enough space for them all on her bookshelves, so she had piled some of them up against the hallway wall, a bit too near the door, apparently. There was a bedroom off to the right, and the living room/kitchen diner just ahead.

It was tidy, but looked lived-in as well. Lizzie was partial to the term 'cluttered'. As already implied, the bookshelves were full, with some smaller novellas stacked lengthways on top of the other books. And on the top of the same unit were some old shoeboxes gathering dust, containing remnants of her childhood and of her school days.

The floor space was relatively uncluttered and clean, with a coffee table and a sofa, both of which she'd picked up from a charity shop. The kitchenette was accompanied by a little table and two chairs, none of which matched. But Lizzie liked it – she appreciated the individuality of it all.

On the wall above her table was a pin board, where she kept a few photos and postcards, and notelets to herself to remind her to take the bins out and such. There was a window opposite her sofa, looking out onto the street below. As she entered her flat and before she flopped down on the sofa and closed her eyes, Lizzie drew the tartan curtains, and switched on the fairy lights that ran from the window, above the TV, and around into the kitchen diner.

Time passed, with her just sitting there, wasting it, before she opened her eyes and looked up to see a battered novel on the coffee table, waiting for her. She loved books. As a child, she'd been such an avid reader, and often had her nose buried in a book. It was comforting, having the struggles of someone else to escape into, and it was heartening how those struggles could help her understand her own.

But as she'd grown up, it had become harder to read as much as she used to. Lizzie promised herself, as some kind of New Year's Resolution (which, if she did say so herself, she was rather good at sticking to), that she would read 20 pages every day, partly so she didn't feel so rubbish about not having the same bond with stories as she used to. The looming, overstuffed bookshelves were a reminder of the days when that bond was strong and when she had made time for books, before the days she came home, ate alone, washed up, and sat in the dark, empty flat, just dreaming of that time when books were her life.

This evening, she'd grabbed some chips on her way back home, and had eaten most of them as she walked. It had left her at a loose end, now, as she sat on her sofa, absent-mindedly watching the light fitting (the bulb had no shade), just waiting for something to happen. So, Lizzie took herself off to bed. Maybe sleeping would make her feel better.

Of course, it didn't help that Lizzie was an insomniac – and a bad one at that. Some nights she could go off to bed, and sleep just fine. Other nights, she just couldn't lie still, or get rid of thoughts she didn't want, and allow herself to be carried off into a world of the not-real and of the seemingly-real, of disjointed, random bits of life, strung together in the form of dreams, almost like little clips of movies uploaded to YouTube – the story, there, but not the whole story.  
But in one way, insomnia worked for Lizzie, though, because sometimes the nights were the only time she could find a way to feel better. The calmness and tranquillity of the small hours, at just gone three, when nobody was awake.

Nobody at all.

This was one of those nights, where no matter how much she tried, sleep just refused to come, and she just wanted to go out and wander the Earth as everyone else slept. When these nights came, Lizzie would take herself over to the lone window of the flat, that looked down onto the street below. She was lucky to have one of the flats with an actual window – this was the only flat that had one.

On these nights, Lizzie would pull back the curtain, and sit on the windowsill, looking out at the night- shrouded street outside, and marvelling at how the stars looked down on her from above. She'd shut the curtains behind her, enclosing herself in this little bubble on the edge of reality. It was like she was in a capsule, watching the universe drift by, at the same time the nights would tick by.

It was so comforting to lock herself away like that, a set of curtains blocking out the real world, with a starry world ahead. She'd always found it comforting. Lizzie had memories, of doing this even as a child. When all the others were in bed, and she was the last one awake, she would sit on her windowsill and look out over the garden in the night.

Blissful moments of solitude.

Tonight, as she watched, the night was calm, and the weather was still. As summer approached, the nights would grow warmer – but there would be storms as well. But tonight, there was no cloud layer, and she could enjoy the never-ending cycle of stars, burning and re-burning in the dome-like impossible navy blue of the night sky above her head. Lizzie sat back, resting her head against the wall and hugging her knees hunched up in front of her, and watched. The temperature by her window was colder than that of the rest of the flat – it made the hairs on her neck and arms stand up, and it chilled her. But it wasn't uncomfortable. It was almost cathartic.

Lizzie was thinking how impossible it would be to count how many nights she'd spent like this, by the window. She had lost count, herself. That's why Lizzie was reasonably certain that, despite the constant change unfolding in the sky, the estate grounds below her window would not be too different whenever she chose to look down. She knew there was another block of flats over the road, exactly the same as hers, with three storeys, one in the middle with a large window. And she knew that if she were to continue down the road to either the left or the right, there would be some houses, paintwork crumbling off them, and litter tossed into their gardens.

So, because of her experienced understanding of the geography of the grounds outside her home, Lizzie Darwin was certain that she had never seen a large blue box on the street corner, just opposite her window.

It was a police box, the sort from 1950s London. It was built from the most beautiful, blue-painted wood, and had a glowing light on its roof, illuminating the various signs on the rest of the box, as well as the area surrounding it, with its warm, yellow, glow. It looked fundamentally normal in terms of its construction, just like a funny little cabinet. And yet she had a strange, nagging feeling, one that people in her favourite books usually felt (and that Lizzie had ridiculed as a child), that whatever the box was, it wasn't simply someone's idea of a joke, left out on the street corner as a lark. There was something different about it.

Her mind already had gone straight onto some weird and out-there possibilities before she even dared to consider what was probably the more realistic explanation. After all, in the real world, there was no such thing as a magical blue police box. But Lizzie also knew that nobody would go to so much trouble on just a whim. Why would you even bother building such a thing for 'a bit of a laugh?' she quoted herself back to herself, as she often did when she thought she was being stupid.

For a reason she could not define, Lizzie just knew that somewhere there was such thing as a magical blue police box.

She threw on some jeans and a t-shirt, grabbed her coat, and sailed out of the flat.

* * *

When she arrived on the street below, Lizzie realised she was definitely not going mad.

There was a man as well.

He was sitting half in and half out of the box, fiddling with something in his hands that looked like some battered piece of technology. She was sceptical about going over to him, and yet, she continued to approach him anyway, because she was curious, and she didn't want to miss out on the opportunity to investigate a weird box that had suddenly appeared on the corner of her street.

As she neared him, he looked up at her and smiled.

His smile told her a lot about him. It was a sad smile, the sort of smile smiled by a person who had seen … a lot. It seemed to Lizzie that the man had once smiled many happy smiles. However, the days of those happy smiles were done, and he'd now resigned himself to days of only sad smiles.

His hair wasn't long, but it was unkempt, making it look longer and shaggier than it was, and that added to a rather worn down appearance overall, when combined with the light stubble on his chin and the clothing he wore. He was wearing a battered pair of brown leather boots, and a rugged pair of black trousers ran down to just above his ankles. His rather antiquated frock coat ran down to his knees, and a once-white, now-dirtied shirt lay open, making way for a simple woollen scarf that now sat beside him draped over his leather satchel.

"Hello," he said to her.

It was a simple word, a simple greeting, that many people would say in passing. But the way he said it indicated that this was, most definitely, not in passing. Lizzie sensed that he didn't say this to many people.

She hesitated, just for a few seconds, wondering whether this was a stupid idea, and whether she should just turn around and go back into her flat. She did an odd little should-she/shouldn't-she dance in the middle of the road, while debating in her mind what she should do, while a strange, incomprehensible babble of syllables that were probably meant to form 'this was a bad idea,' spilled out of her mouth, followed by a beat of silence, and then….

"Erm – hi."

There we go. She'd greeted him. And now she could continue down the road in an awkward walk, as if she were in fact just off on a late-night stroll. Lizzie could read people through their faces, through the little twitches and changes that they made. She read his face quite clearly, and stopped.

"I saw you, sat up there," the man gestured up to her window.

She didn't know what to do, even now. Could she still find some awkward excuse to retreat, or should simply try to engage in some sort of conversation.  
"Oh, er, yeah. I just – I sit there sometimes. I know, it's a bit weird but, I just –"

"No, don't worry. The stars," the man looked up. "I can understand why."

"Good, right, well," she turned to leave, praying to some deity she didn't believe in that this painfully awkward moment would end as quickly as it had started. "I'd better be –"

"What's your name?"

Once again, Lizzie did her weird hesitation jig in the middle of the road.

"I'm, er, Lizzie."

"Nice to meet you, Lizzie."

"And you?" she asked, automatically playing her role in the formalities of introduction, although having such a formal conversation in such absurd circumstances just felt unreal.

"I'm –" he paused, almost as if he'd forgotten what his name was. "I'm the Doctor."

He paused for a moment, as if he were trying to examine his own words and extract some meaning from them. It was as if he hadn't heard those words from anyone in a long time, let alone himself.

She couldn't just… go. Here was a strange man called the Doctor, sitting in the open door of a blue 1950s police box…. Lizzie walked closer to him, to get a better look at what he was doing.

"What's that?" she asked him, attempting to use some of the 'small talk tactics' her manager had attempted to instil in her.

"It's a screwdriver. It used to be sonic, but now… I think I need another one."

She paused. "But it's-"

"Yeah," the strange Doctor-man nodded, as if he fully understood Lizzie's bewilderment. The device, to her, did not look remotely like a screwdriver. It was a sort of… tool, a gadget thing, with a red hoop at the end, and some wires sprawling out of the metal stick it was attached to.

The conversation was awkward. Neither of them really knew what to talk about because both of them were avoiding the elephant in the room.

"If you're wondering what I'm doing here, with the box…"

"Oh, er, yeah," Lizzie said. "What are you doing here? With the, erm, box."

"I had seen a picture of this place on a calendar. Thought it'd be nice to come here for a break."

"They put the main town on calendars all the time," Lizzie nodded, thinking back to all the 'Best British Market Town' calendars she'd seen in gift shops.

"No…," the Doctor looked confused. "I mean this bit."

Lizzie looked at him, a confused expression moving across her face. He was having a laugh, and it annoyed her, because there were some idiots who took every opportunity to make fun of the people who lived here in the estate.

"It was. Not joking," the Doctor continued. "'The Universe's Most inspirational Places.' For the year 5327, I think."

This place isn't inspirational, Lizzie thought to herself.

"Why isn't it inspirational?" the Doctor smiled, as if he knew what she was thinking.

It suddenly struck Lizzie, what he had said about the year of the calendar being 5327. The 54th century. Although her instincts were shouting at her that he was just having a laugh at her expense because obviously nobody could actually be from the future and have magic 'sonic screwdrivers' or whatever they were! On the other hand, there was something that told her he couldn't be making this up.

"The year 5327," she turned to him. "Surely that's – I mean, I don't know, that's not real. Unless, like-"

The Doctor looked almost surprised that she'd picked up on it so quickly.

"What are you a Doctor of?"

He looked down suddenly, as if she'd asked a question that had reminded him of something from the past, or…

"Sorry," she backtracked. "I didn't, erm, I didn't mean to upset you. Are you… are you alright?"

"No, it's my fault," the Doctor looked back up at her, smiling again. Lizzie could tell it wasn't a genuine smile like his smile from before. "The question, that's all. Brings back memories."

"I'm sorry." And she was.

"No, it's not your fault. Friends of mine – they always ask that question. Anyway, it doesn't matter," the Doctor put the sonic screwdriver in his bag and stood up.  
Lizzie caught sight of his eyes. His friends, whoever they were, weren't with him anymore. That would explain why he looked so sad.

"Do you want to talk about it? Cause, I mean, like, you can, if you want."

The Doctor walked over to her, and gently placed his hand on her shoulder. "Lizzie – it was lovely meeting you."

Although she barely knew who he was, there was part of her that still wanted to help him. "I guess – if you need to vent, you know where I am." Lizzie turned to walk away.

She sincerely wanted him to know that, to just acknowledge that whatever he'd been through, there would always be someone for him to turn to, and to talk to. He didn't have to suffer alone. She pulled her coat tightly around her, as she walked back to the flat.

Then, a voic

"Lizzie. Please – stay."

* * *

Lizzie had sat down next to the Doctor at the foot of the open door to the police box. The lights had been switched off, so she couldn't see if there was anything else in there. But – it wasn't like normal lights being switched off. It was like there was an absence of light there, as if the darkness had almost been put there artificially so she couldn't see whatever was inside.

"So – I was a bit aimless," the Doctor admitted. "But I picked up a high concentration of dimensional disturbances, somewhere within this town…. at least."

Although Lizzie didn't have a clue what he was saying, she knew it was good that he was talking about something he was interested in, at least. It would help him.

"Unusual amounts of dimensional energy. I've been tracking it, and I told the TARDIS to track it …."

She had no idea what this tardis thing was, or if it had something to do with the sonic screwdriver or the box or something else. Lizzie was just willing to let him talk.

"…And it brought you here?" she finished his sentence.

"Yes. It's not always precise, but it usually gets the rough location reasonably correct. That's when I discovered my sonic screwdriver was broken."

The TARDIS clearly had nothing to do with the sonic screwdriver, then. Lizzie decided just to broach the subject anyway. It couldn't do much harm.

"What's the tardis?"

"Oh," he brushed it off, as if the answer were obvious. "The box. It's magic."

"The magic box," Lizzie whispered to herself.

The Doctor patted the wood, as if it were a loyal and faithful hound. "The magic box."

He looked at it sadly, as if the words woke something up deep inside him.

"What happens, then?" she asked, referring back to the Doctor's concern about the unusual amount of "dimensional energy" that he had tracked here.

"It's not that harmful, in small doses. In the grand scheme of things, the amount here is still tiny – just large in comparison to the usual state of affairs here. I'm just intrigued."

Lizzie nodded – and then caught sight of the thing at the end of the road.

"Erm –"

"Yes?"

Lizzie gestured towards a tall figure, dressed simply, in a pair of tracksuit bottoms, and a tee-shirt picked up at a metal concert of some kind. She did, in fact, recognise him as a man who lived on the estate, just down the road from her. She had passed him sometimes, as he leaned against the wall outside his house, smoking. But what she saw before her now, chilled her to the bone.

It first struck her, that his feet were bare. That would not seem so odd on its own, but he was also wearing a mask. Something simple, with the basic features of the face shaped into white plastic. What was disturbing was that the eyeholes were empty. Or rather, where two eyes should look through and bring life to an otherwise cold and blank template, there were two deep pools of blackness. Lizzie could see this clearly, even from a distance. And for a moment, she froze.  
As she always told herself, eyes were a good way to understand a person – and she knew that whoever this person was, they were not just someone she vaguely recognized, standing in the middle of the road wearing a mask. That would be absurd anyway – even if that's all it were.

But this was something outside of the norm.

Lizzie wondered whether it was a coincidence that some of the weirdest stuff she'd encountered in her life so far was occurring on this one evening. She decided it wasn't a coincidence, because the Doctor seemed to have some idea of what was going on; he had tracked some odd disturbances to her very neighbourhood and now the Doctor was rushing on foot towards the masked figure, perhaps to take a closer look?

And Lizzie followed.

The figure didn't react, even when the Doctor went right up close and stared into its face. It remained motionless, staring off into the distance with empty eyes.  
"I hope he's alright," Lizzie murmured, a nervous look on her face.

"Do you…?" the Doctor started to ask and then stopped, as if he expected her to know what he was about to ask, which she did

"He lives just down the road… I pass him on the way to work."

"Ah," the Doctor murmured, as he tried to pull the mask from the face. Lizzie heard the crackle of electricity and the Doctor whipped his fingers back.

"Don't hurt him," Lizzie gasped.

"I'm fine," the Doctor responded, shrugging it off.

"I was talking to you. Be careful. Whoever he is, he is like… you know. A person."

"Oh. Sorry."

In a way, Lizzie felt a little bit guilty, because the Doctor looked disappointed with himself.

"It's stuck," he continued, "I mean, there's an electrical field bonding the mask to his skin. I don't know what it's for…"

"Why him?" Lizzie asked, interested as to why, of all the people, this had happened to this man, on this estate, although to be honest, it didn't completely surprise her.

"I… don't know."

The Doctor placed his fingers just where the mask touched the skin.

"What are –"

This time, he gave a firm yank, and this time he lurched back as the electricity shot up through his hands and straight up both his arms.

"Be care…" And, as he reeled from the pain… "Doctor!"

One more go, one more searing shock of electricity, and the mask was in the Doctor's hands, along with the face of the man that had been beneath it.  
There wasn't any blood or gore, though. Instead, the face looked like it had been stitched together. His mouth, nostrils, eyelids and earholes were bound tightly together with thin, white thread. The operation had been executed with expertise – all the stitches were perfectly even, and a knot had been tied at the end.

Lizzie grimaced and spoke softly. "Poor, poor guy."

The Doctor frowned. "The mask – it bonded to his face so securely that it intruded so much on the facial structure that… the mask…repaired it."

Lizzie understood what he meant, though the Doctor, almost as if for dramatic effect, decided to elaborate anyway.

"When it became attached to his face, it damaged his eyes, and nose, and mouth. So … to fix that the mask stitched them up, like a doctor stitches up a wound."

The man who'd worn the mask remained standing, as the Doctor made his way back to the TARDIS.

"What do we do with him?" Lizzie placed an arm around the man, just to make sure he didn't fall over.

"We take him back to wherever he lived. Then – eventually his body will be found."

Lizzie turned towards the house where the man had once lived, his body leaning on her, as if he had just sprained his ankle, or bruised his shin badly, and she were helping him back home.

"Lizzie –"

"It's fine, Doctor. I'll take him home."

* * *

As Lizzie walked, supporting him, her mind went into overdrive. This man was dead.

The Doctor had said the mask had helped him, it would've been more painful had it not stitched him up like that. But someone was dead, and in what was both a simple and extraordinary fashion. This man had loved people, people had loved him. A whole life. And she hadn't even known his name. His body was heavy, really too heavy for her. She should've let the Doctor help, but she was determined to do this on her own. She needed time away from him, to think about what she'd seen. When she returned, the Doctor would probably be gone, just as quickly as he'd arrived. But – the incident with the mask could not have been all there was to this. Whatever the Doctor was here for, it was not over yet. She was almost sure of it.

The Doctor was intriguing. And terrifying as well. He'd looked disturbed when it was clear the man was dead. But he had also looked at the body as if he'd seen the same thing a hundred times before. Whoever he was, he was fundamentally a sad man. She was certain he had lost someone. So many possible interpretations of him – but that's what intrigued her even more. Was he a mad man, or a sad man, or a bad man, or maybe all three at the same time?

The front door to the masked man's house was unlocked, so she gently steered him inside, and through to the downstairs bedroom. With great difficulty, she managed to lie him down on the bed.

Whoever he was, he hadn't done anything wrong. He had done nothing to deserve this. It all had happened because someone had decided it should be him.

Lizzie shut the front door behind her and headed back to where she had left the Doctor.

* * *

When Lizzie arrived back down the road, the blue box was still waiting. The Doctor stood outside, pacing up and down, like an eccentric and impatient professor trying to sort out what was going on and must be done.

"Ah, there you are," the Doctor said, a hint of urgency in his voice.

"Sorry, er…" she began.

"Lizzie, don't worry, it's not your fault. But I need you to come with me. Now."

Of course, her first instinct was to run away from him as far and as fast as she could. And she very nearly did, since she still had very little idea who he was. And some men were dangerous.

He presented the mask to her. A message was on the front, as if the mask were a screen, in simple black font.

 **Facial connection compromised. Defence formation transmitted.**

"I've done a scan," the Doctor said, his voice quick and anxious. "Pre-residual teleportation energy. But regardless of whatever the mask was, whoever owns it is on their way, here, and soon, looking for answers."

"… and?"

"'Defence formation,' Lizzie. That means, whenever they do arrive, they're going to be looking for whoever detached its face. And you were there, with me."  
Lizzie stared at him, and she saw how worried he was. He was genuinely concerned for her, and was nervously looking to his 'TARDIS' every few seconds, as if he were desperate to get away from whatever was coming. Whoever he was, he wanted to help. Lizzie looked at the Doctor, as he waited, just a few feet away from her, and while she looked at him, she could see the huge expanse of sky and stars behind him, like two big, black curtains, splattered in glitter, drawn across the night sky.

And she walked towards him.

The Doctor ran into the TARDIS, and Lizzie followed. But then, as she approached the wooden frame of the doors, she hesitated for a second, watching the Doctor as he disappeared into the darkness inside. It would be cramped. A very tight squeeze. But the Doctor – when he'd run inside, he'd just… kept running. As if the box had no back.

Then the lights turned on.

What Lizzie saw in front of her was impossible.

The box was, rather obviously, bigger on the inside. She poked her head back outside again, just to make sure that she definitely wasn't imagining it or that she hadn't fallen asleep in front of the telly, or something equally stupid. Strangely, though, she knew for certain that she wasn't dreaming.

It was real. The bigger-on-the-inside box was real.

The chamber was huge, and gleaming white, but full of character too. It was hexagonal in shape, just like the shape of the quirky console in the middle, which was completely covered in all manner of buttons and switches and levers. The ceiling was made almost entirely of glass, but the view was not that of the sky outside. Instead, it was some other sky, with ecstatic swirling clouds of shimmering dust, an explosion of colours from all ends of the spectrum, with shining beads of golden light bursting through it all. It was a view of something so far off, and yet so close.

For a brief moment, Lizzie stood in the doorway, unsure of where to go and what to do, but the Doctor firmly hurried her in. As she stepped inside, she saw that two of the walls were lined with bookshelves crammed full of books of all kinds. As she walked past them, she recognised some of the titles, but others, she had never set her eyes upon before. Their titles spoke of the future; many were novels that, for her, had not yet been written, even though they sat there, in front of her, looking as old as the battered books that one often found in second-hand bookshops.

Beside the console was a lone armchair. The Doctor, whoever he was, clearly travelled and even lived here alone, although, partially hidden away on a bookshelf, was a black and white photograph of a woman, wearing something that looked like a make-do bridal gown. It was small photo, just a bit smaller than A5 size, but in a golden frame. Lizzie glanced at it as she walked past, her mind desperate to know who she was to the Doctor, and who else had come to know him.  
There was a viewing gallery above, and just down a set of steps, was an open area where an old, antique writing table stood in the corner, covered in papers. There was a bar as well; Lizzie didn't dare go in, but as she walked past the entrance, it looked like the bar was quite literally gathering dust. It hadn't been used for ages.

The Doctor was looking at her, as if he knew that she would have some questions for him to answer; it was almost as if he expected it – as if she were in a position experienced by so many before her, and he was just following the script.

"We must be somewhere else," Lizzie said as she looked up at the galaxies above her..

The Doctor smiled. He looked tired, but happy, as if he were almost pleased about something.

"Why do you think that?" the Doctor replied as he flicked some switches on the console and pulled a lever.

"Er… I guess, well … it was definitely wardrobe-sized on the outside. And then I came inside and it wasn't. So… we must be somewhere else that isn't within the four walls of the wooden blue bit…"

"And…the ceiling kind of also gives it away," she added, softly, almost as an afterthought.

"Yes. Basically. It's another dimension."

There was a screen attached to an articulated metal armature, mounted on a turntable on top of the console, and the Doctor grabbed it, and gracefully, slid it towards him.

"We have to get away from them."

"I guess this thing, your… TARDIS… it moves?" Lizzie stood, motionless, and slightly awkwardly, looking at the Doctor as he danced around the console. And, the way he moved was like he was doing it all again for the very first time. And yes, she was aware of the paradox at the heart of her observation.

"Oh, Lizzie," the Doctor seemed to be smiling at her naivety, even though pretty much everyone on Earth would've been naïve in her situation. "It moves."  
With those words, he pulled down the lever with one emphatic move – the largest lever, the one in the middle of the console. And clearly it was the ON switch– the one that made the magic begin, the one that made the great machine burst into life.

She was right – as the Doctor's hand left the lever, the glass column in the middle started to slide up and down, and a great, mechanical whirring, like the sound a machine would make if somehow it could breathe, echoed throughout the box.

Seconds later, the box stopped.

Lizzie was aware of how quick it had been. Most spaceships had to do the whole launching thing, and then had to fly, but it was as if the box had picked itself up, and had moved itself to wherever they were now, without any mechanical fuss.

In the blink of an eye, the Doctor was past her, looking out the doors, peering from side to side.

"It's safe. They haven't followed us."

He stepped out the door and beckoned for her to follow. She did.

"Why here?" Lizzie asked.

"Set the coordinates to random, somewhere within the vicinity of the town."

Lizzie had a startling sensation: it was as if the TARDIS had known she was in here, and Lizzie began to wonder whether the bigger-on-the-inside box could sense things, like a real, thinking person, as if the computer in the middle was the brain and the control centre of the whole thing.

"I need to find the source of this mask." The Doctor's words abruptly brought her out of her thoughts.

Lizzie looked at him, her expression asking him to elaborate, as he held the sonic screwdriver to the mask.

"This isn't the only mask or even the main mask."

His observation had not helped. She waited for more to come, and it did.

"Imagine a nervous system of masks," he continued.

It almost made Lizzie laugh, as it was such a ridiculous notion.

"And this is just one of the nerves at the end, one of the little, tiny ones. Somewhere, there is a brain. The one that controls all the rest."

"Oh. And you want to find it? Or … something else…"

"Exactly. I quite fancy a cup of tea," the Doctor had made his way over to the door of a café. He was about to use the sonic screwdriver (a device that Lizzie seemed to note had featured quite heavily in their encounter so far) to open the door. Then, Lizzie reached into her coat pocket, and pulled out a set of keys.

"Where did you get those?" the Doctor looked at her in surprise.

"My manager."

There was a look of realisation on his face. "You…"

* * *

It would come as no surprise to anyone, except perhaps the Doctor, that there was no one in the café at that time of night. It was gone half past two, after all, as she put the key in the lock and the Doctor followed her inside the empty shop and turned on the lights. Lizzie began to think of what it would be like the next morning if her manager found out. That is, if there ever was a next morning.

Lizzie had truly mastered the art of the perfect cup of tea – not only because she spent so much of her personal time drinking it, but because it's what she spent so many of her work days, making it for others.

"You work here," the Doctor distractedly stated the obvious as he looked up from the mask when she placed the mug down on the little table in front of him and sat down across from him.

"Yes."

"That's… a surprise."

"I guess I'll take that as a compliment," she laughed nervously.

"It was meant as one. But you're intelligent. Very intelligent. Why are you here? Living in that council flat, and working in a café making tea for the locals over 70 and for tourists passing through?"

Passing through. Like you? She smiled to herself.

She realised that the Doctor probably lived in his magic box. That it was like a home on wheels, perhaps like a caravan. He was obviously from somewhere, wherever that was, but for some reason, stayed away from it. Lizzie noticed the contrast between the two of them, especially since here she sat, stuck in the town she'd lived in since childhood.

"I didn't have anywhere else to go …." Lizzie responded finally, and then stopped, as if she'd revealed too much.

"Go on."

"This town is home, I suppose. And I also don't really have much of a choice."

"I noticed. The estate, and then this part of the town. The divide between both halves. Not even halves – the estate is sprawling, with this island of the upper class in the middle."

Lizzie noticed the Doctor as he said this: he'd looked away from her and then down into his mug of tea. He was trying to hide his face.

"Are you…?" she began.

"Sorry. Don't worry. I – I knew someone from your country who was meant to fix all this."

Lizzie didn't understand what he meant, because he sounded so certain that somebody had been going to help them.

"His vision for the country. No more poverty, or gaping inequality, or anything like that. No university tuition fees. Social care, so much better."

Lizzie would've voted for him, whoever he was.

"I don't even know your last name," the Doctor said to her.

"I don't even know your first," she snapped back, rather pleased with her witty retort. "Sorry, not that I…"

But the Doctor was smiling, almost as if he were pleased with her.

"Darwin," Lizzie said.

"As in Charles?"

"As in Charles," she confirmed.

"I met him once. Interesting chap, to say the least."

There was probably some kind of 'oh my god!' comment that Lizzie should've used to respond to whatever the Doctor said, but she decided just to take it as it came, because the oddness showed very little sign of stopping.

"Elizabeth Darwin," the Doctor said, letting the name flow off his tongue. "It's a lovely name."

She hesitated. She'd never liked anyone to call her by her full name. It reminded her of the scary care-worker from the home, back when she was younger, who used the name like a threat or a warning. With the look on her face, she told the Doctor all he needed to know and he understood. But then she added, "Thanks, I guess-"

The Doctor, so far, had spent the entire conversation looking at her, almost like the way she chose to focus on a person's eyes. The Doctor had been focusing on her – on everything about her. She saw something else, just for the briefest of seconds, as his eyes flicked away from her to something else.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Nothing," the Doctor dismissed it, sipping his tea and trying not to look sheepish that he'd been caught out. Lizzie thought about ignoring it, but it was as if, for just a few seconds, he'd fallen out of their conversation.

"Like, I don't want to be weird or anything, but you were definitely – you were definitely looking behind me."

"Lizzie, wait – "

She'd got him.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Don't turn around. Just – look into my eyes, Elizabeth."

"How far away is it?"

"Approximately 10 metres, give or take."

"Erm..."

"I've been scanning the mask – I think I know what it is. And this is what they do. It's better when they take their victims by surprise, so they have no idea. Or, even better, they like to put you slightly on edge, like sowing the seeds of the bad dreams of a child lying awake in bed at night..."

The Doctor's analogy chilled her to the bone – and he continued.

"That's what they are, Lizzie. They are the shiver that runs down your spine. Maybe the sound of a few footsteps, here and there. Just to make you slightly wary, setting your blood to a gentle boil. Then they pounce."

"But…," Lizzie tried hard to think of some explanation, as if her life depended on it. Which, she just realised, it kind of actually did. "But, surely, if you're telling me it's there, then – then there's no point in it killing me! Because … because if I'm aware of their existence, then there would be no point – no – no shock factor."

"In theory," the Doctor said. "But I've come to realise that theory and practise are very different things."

Lizzie was taking slow, deep breaths, as the fear bubbled up through her, rising up her gullet and clawing its way up her throat.

"Can we get away from it?" she whispered. "I mean – this is just a drone, or something – what about the main it?"

The Doctor stuffed the sonic screwdriver and the mask into his satchel. "Okay. Lizzie, stand up."

Lizzie pushed her chair away from her as she stood. By speaking in his slow, calm, voice, the Doctor was almost hypnotizing her into rising slower.  
"Slowly, that's it," the Doctor smiled. "Keep looking at me – that's it, keep looking – Lizzie, don't look."

She turned her head, but only an inch. She could see the shadow, where the creature lurked. She could see the outline of its mask, and the blurred, yet dark, and empty pits, where its eyes were watching her. Those eyes must've been the only way it sensed. Everything it was registering – her movements, the movements of the Doctor in front of her, would be streaming through the blackness of those eyes.

Lizzie was up now, and the Doctor was looking over her shoulder at the masked figure.

"Now, Lizzie … step around the table, and walk."

She did so, and started slowly walking away. Gradually, as she got further and further away from the table and hopefully the figure she could not see, she began to speed up.

"Don't speed up. Just … stay … calm."

The Doctor's words made her slow down again, made her breathe. She was frozen in the moment, but unlike the masked man, she didn't sense everything through her eyes. She could feel the coldness of the café on her arms underneath her coat, causing the hairs on her arms to rise, and she could hear only one sound – the Doctor's soothing voice.

She was near the door.

"Now … go outside," the Doctor continued. She began to leave, as he said, but when she started to turn around to look back into the café, the Doctor firmly warned her, again, "Don't."

He strode past her, out the café door, and a few feet later, was at the doors of the TARDIS, unlocking them and stepping back inside as Lizzie followed.  
Almost as soon as she'd shut the TARDIS doors, she heard the sound of a hard object slamming against the wooden doors. It was like somebody had a battering ram, and was pounding the navy blue oak as hard as they could.

The Doctor was looking at the monitor – its screen showed a view of the street outside. But … there was no battering-ram, just the masked figure thumping the doors with its fists.

"It won't be able to get in. Nothing can get through those doors," assured the Doctor saw her standing tentatively by the doors, watching them fearfully.  
"'Nothing' only extends to what they've been tested against," she said, not taking her eyes off them for a second.

"Good point," he walked over to her. "But, we're leaving anyway. It won't be able to come after us."

"You said that before."

"This time we're going further afield."

Lizzie began to protest. "You … I need to … I have to work tomorrow."

The Doctor smiled a coy smile. Lizzie was beginning to realise he had rather a knack for surprises. So, as he had done before, he pulled the lever and the TARDIS started its husky, mechanical breathing once more. She shrugged at his impudence, and then wished she hadn't because she was worried she'd offended him.

"Lizzie, open the doors." the Doctor flung his satchel over his shoulder and joined her by the doors. "Trust me," he pointed to the handle.

"But it's still out there," she said, and yet she had walked back to them and joined him, apparently trusting him enough to go against what her instincts were telling her.

She opened the doors.

It was daytime now. And yet they were in exactly the same place, in front of the café. She remembered Charles Darwin.

"So it – it travels in time as well?"

The Doctor's face lit up as she said it and as he watched her realization that she had been in a time machine.

"Yes. It travels in time. And that should shake them off for a bit."

"Erm – yeah, I guess. But," she asked, as he reached inside his satchel, and took out a strange, mobile phone sized device. "Surely we need to look for the brain? You know? The one in the middle that controls all the rest? Or, I don't know…"

"Yes – we do. I'm trying to lock onto a trace of the dimensional energy. That's how they travel, I think. Bending dimensions."

"So… what are they?"

"Hmm?" the Doctor asked.

"You said you knew."

"Oh. No, don't worry…."

"You can't just tell me, and then not tell me. That's not fair. I am part of this. Sorry, I don't want to be a…."

There was a brief, awkward silence between the two of them, as they stood in the glinting, golden sunlight of the morning. They were on the edge of the town square: a memorial wall stood in the centre, like an island in a sea of perfectly trimmed grass, the green protected by a ring of ornamental, black metal, chains.

The Doctor looked at her, as if he were confused about something. As if nobody had spoken to him like that in a while. His eyes were kind, though, as if he appreciated her for having said it.

"Of course. I'm sorry," he said.

The two of them walked down the cobbled pavement, beneath the lamp posts with their perfect hanging baskets, full of flowers of all kinds and colours. Lizzie checked her watch – it was wrong. It was as if she'd just walked straight out of her own time and through an open door into another. A few people were out and about – but it was quiet, and there weren't as many tourists as usual. Just the odd villager walking their dog, or a young family out for a morning walk.

"I picked a Sunday," the Doctor noticed her looking. She wondered why.

"There's an old myth, Lizzie – It was a bedtime story, for me – about the mask." the Doctor began. "It was a story they used to tell children, back home. It involved a spectre, a ghostly figure all robed in white, with a mask, like the ones we've just seen. They called her the Masked Maiden. And supposedly, she'd come at night, find children, and stitch their eyes shut, so they'd never be able to see again."

Lizzie grimaced, before realising it was really no worse than most fairy stories she had heard.

"I didn't realise it at first," the Doctor admitted. "I thought about the similarity – but dismissed it…."

"Because you don't believe in fairy tales?"

Lizzie wished she could take back her words and wipe them from his mind, because they'd both stopped walking, and it was probably too sudden, too personal, too sentimental an observation. But in those few moments, something the Doctor had said – she wasn't even sure what it was – had struck a chord in her, and made her say it, even though she hadn't even thought it through.

"Sorry, I should just – like, not speak , or…"  
r blunt observation rather than her awkward apology for it. Lizzie nodded, a sort of awkward nod, because she didn't really know what to say.

Still beside her, the Doctor was intently reading something—dimensional energy? – with his sonic held aloft, and humming busily.

"Where are you tracking it to?"

"I'm not sure. What landmarks are in this place?"

There wasn't anything significant Lizzie could think of. It was just a little market town, where old people came to live out their final years, and where tourists flocked to in search of the finest middle-class experience.

"Anything you'd find on a map would do," the Doctor said.

"Erm… there's a pub, a post office, a church," Lizzie saw the Doctor grimace slightly at the mention of a church. "A gift shop – actually there are lots of those… And…."

"Ah, hello Elizabeth!"

Lizzie stopped her list when she saw Mrs Smith walking towards her.

"Good morning Mrs Smith!" Lizzie exclaimed a touch too cheerfully, straightening her coat and striding towards the lady with her two springer spaniels (Peter and Jasper, ages 5 and 6, respectively, Peter having recently suffered from worms) The Doctor was left looking around in confusion, as the shy and bumbling girl beside him had suddenly transformed into somebody else.

"Who's your friend?" Mrs Smith gave a wry smile as the Doctor approached them.

"This is…," Lizzie realised she couldn't introduce him as a doctor without Mrs Smith reaffirming her suspicions that everyone from the estate was delusional. Speaking of which, Lizzie was expecting some kind of mocking comment right about –

"Another one from the estate, hmm?" Mrs Smith looked down at him. "I've not seen you around here before."

"No. I'm –"

Mrs Smith turned to Lizzie. "He's not an– ," she mouthed something at her.

"No, Mrs Smith. The Doctor is not an immigrant."

The Doctor looked at Mrs Smith in disgust.

"And, Mrs Smith," Lizzie continued. "Would you mind not using such language– "

"What are you looking at me like that for?" Mrs Smith frowned at the Doctor. "Honestly. My husband served our health service for a good few years. They ought to charge foreigners– "

"Mrs Smith," Lizzie interrupted, her voice fierce in a way that surprised even Lizzie herself. "Your husband served a health service that promises free healthcare to everyone. Including immigrants. And also including bigots. Good morning."

And Lizzie walked away.

Mrs Smith had a lot of power in this small town, so it didn't matter how much Lizzie could travel in time or how easily she could run away, she was probably out of a job. But it had been worth it, just to see Mrs Smith's shocked expression as she'd turned and walked off. It was heart-warming to know that if they did cut off the heating in Lizzie's flat she'd still have the memory of Mrs Smith's face to treasure always!

"Where did that come from?" the Doctor whispered in awe as he appeared behind her.

"Erm ... what?" Lizzie asked, as if she had no idea what he was talking about. She did, of course, but she'd decided she'd like them both to forget about it and move on.

"All of it! First you were all small-talk and smiles, and then you completely ripped into her. I've – I've not seen that side of you before."

Lizzie turned to him. "They're – I mean, they – well, they're not sides of me. I mean the scary one, yeah, that one is, but like – I don't want to be horrible 'cause she has children and stuff, but she deserves it and I really hate her. And the smiley one, I have to treat her like that in the café, and it genuinely makes me feel sick. So yeah."

The Doctor looked impressed, and Lizzie still felt uncomfortable.

"It's like acting," Lizzie continued, then shut up. She thought about saying something else, but didn't. Then she did. "That two-sided person, is not me. Like an actress, I can become them, and talk about the weather, and dogs, and other things like that, but it's a performance."

The Doctor seemed to understand. She hoped he did. Lizzie was concerned that the Doctor would expect to see more of the not-real waitress personality, which wasn't her, at all. Lizzie had found it hard at first, finding the confidence to make small talk with people. But it had come down to the wire – she needed the job, and so she had to learn. And when she finally developed a way of making it like pretending to be a different character, an alter-ego of sorts, it had made it so much easier. She was just playing the role of a happy, confident and outgoing young woman, while knowing, all the time, that she wasn't. She still got shaky whenever she had to make phone calls to people.

Suddenly she realised the Doctor's face had changed from kind and understanding to shocked. He was looking down the road, where a masked figure stood. It was an old woman, who looked like she'd just come out of her house.

Lizzie turned and looked behind herself: at the far end of the road, there was another – an old man, out to collect his morning paper. There were only two of them, though. They could get away from two of them – probably. Then she looked across to the other side of the square: access to the streets on that side were blocked by two more, and standing at the head of the path to the church that also led down to the square, was the vicar, wearing a mask the same white shade as his robes.

The Doctor strode over to the old lady. She was at least a foot shorter than him, her hair permed, and she still wore her slippers, along with a thin red cardigan. A cup of tea was clutched in her hand. It looked almost comically normal – as if she were offering him a morning cuppa.

"I know who you are," the Doctor said.

The masked figure did not respond.

"'The Masked Maiden'. A figure of Gallifreyan legend, a bedtime story. You were used to terrify me."

Lizzie watched as the Doctor tried to… what? Intimidate the woman.

"What are you doing here?" he asked..

Still no response.

"There's nothing for you here."

"Ask it why does it choose those people," Lizzie nudged the Doctor.

The masked woman turned to her. A message typed itself out onto the face of the mask, like text being entered into a word document.

 **These people are disposable.**

Lizzie wanted to break something, preferably the mask. "Nobody's disposable," she answered firmly. "There's no such thing as– "

 **The Maiden is looking for the prize.**

"You'll have to talk to it," the Doctor urged Lizzie. But she backed away, because she just couldn't do it, she was sure of it. There was no way at all she could talk to aliens about all this stuff she didn't understand.

"I – I –"

"You can, Lizzie! You just told that old bat Mrs. Smith where to stick it! You can do the same now."

Lizzie sighed, like the audible 'fine' of a sulking teenager.

"What do I say?"

"The questions have to come from you."

Lizzie scanned her brain as to what questions would be relevant to ask this creature. Where was it from? No. The Doctor wouldn't need to know that anyway. Were they invading? No. Stupid. Jumping to conclusions. Then she remembered the last thing the old woman had said. Or rather, typed. Or whatever.

"What is the prize?"

 **Unauthorised information for drone 5:1467835.**

Suddenly, Lizzie thought of an even better question, and was rather pleased with herself.

"Why are you only answering my questions?"

 **You are authorised.**

In her brain, she ran through what she'd just learned. For some reason, she was authorised to talk to this drone. But the Doctor wasn't. Maybe the Doctor was alien – it was possible – no, it was probable, with a box like that – and perhaps, as a human, she had special authorisation?

"Well … clearly … they like authorising people. Including their human drones," Lizzie said. "And – for some reason, I'm authorised for certain information that the drone isn't, which I guess means that the Maiden keeps some information exclusively to herself – maybe so it doesn't fall into the wrong hands? Or, am I just reading too much into this?"

"No," the Doctor gave her a reassuring look. "I think you might be right."

"I guess the Maiden herself," Lizzie began, spooked at what she was saying because it sounded too fictional to her liking, "is probably where the prize is? Whatever that is..."

"Yes – I believe you're right there as well. Think, Lizzie, think. When I asked you for locations – what other landmarks are there? In fact – even better– think of locations in relation to you. Places that relate to you and to people you know. Because you have authorisation, for some reason."

Lizzie thought, thought, and thought. There was the café, but the masked figures had already been there, and found nothing. There was a school, but she didn't see what they'd be able to find there either. Then again – they were probably looking for something obscure. There was her former home, obviously, but –  
Oh.

"Erm … Doctor, a question for you, I think?"

The Doctor was eyeing the area around them. The TARDIS was still in reach.

"No," Lizzie dismissed it. "No. Don't worry. Stupid idea –"

"Elizabeth Darwin, listen to me. Your ideas aren't stupid."

Lizzie breathed, and continued. "I – I grew up in a care home, long story. Well, not really that long but… anyway … you did say it was a fairy story, used to scare small children. Well –"

The Doctor stared at her, suddenly realizing what she was saying. Lizzie saw his look – it was the look of somebody putting the pieces of the puzzle together, and beginning to understand what they meant.

"Lizzie," the Doctor said, still looking at the figures out of the corner of one eye. The one word that would describe the look on his face was "ominous," as if he were about to say something really big or really important. He kept her in suspense, for a beat, as he watched the creatures in silence. They were beginning to advance now, one by one, slowly making their way towards them. Lizzie hoped he'd just hurry up and finish whatever he was going to say because second by second she was growing ever more concerned for her life... and his.

"On three, we run …"

* * *

The care home had not changed much over the years, apart from the fact most of the people there were different. The older residents now had been the youngest during Lizzie's time. But as she had done, they too had grown up, and yet there they were still here.

Pat opened the door and looked out as the two of them approached on foot – they thought it best to park the TARDIS outside and at a distance instead of just popping up, despite the urgency of their visit. Lizzie looked at the outside. She wondered if people looked at the houses of their parents the way she looked at the front of this home. She thought probably not.

It was sad, for the reason that things are just sad when they're over. People are automatically entitled to feel sad about things from their childhood, because the things and moment from happier times aren't around anymore. They had been good to her – really good to her. But there were still the emotions that kids in care went through, that it was almost impossible to protect kids from. But the four walls ahead of her had protected her when she needed it, even though sometimes the home itself was the reason she needed protecting.

Although she frequently passed it, she was looking at it close up now, for the first time in years, and getting ready to go in for the first time in years. She took a deep breath, and followed the Doctor.

Pat, the guy who opened the door, had taken over as head care worker when she was 15, and had been there throughout her last few years at the place. He was a broad-shouldered Irishman, with a heart of gold. He was, to be fair, one of the kindest people she'd ever met.

"Lizzie," he seemed shocked at her suddenly turning up. It probably was a bit of a shock, considering she hadn't been back in so long.

"Hey, Pat," she smiled warmly.

"Come in! Who's this?" he asked, as he shut the door behind them. A staircase ran up beside the door – Lizzie looked at it, and remembered the days when, as a six or seven-year-old, she'd want to be taller, and would try as hard as possible to get up those stairs two at a time, hoping it would increase her height.  
"Oh," the Doctor gave one of his mysterious smiles. "I'm an inspector," the Doctor flashed a strange, blank bit of paper. But Pat clearly bought it – because he seemed to believe him. He's also very immoral, Lizzie wanted to say, as she saw that Doctor was clearly faking his credentials with a magic bit of paper. She couldn't believe that she was letting a weird spaceman into this care home, but because he was presenting himself as an 'inspector', Pat would stay with him, so she felt reassured.

"Listen, Lizzie – sorry about this," Pat said to her. "I'll deal with the inspector. Ah – Carmen."

A girl walked down the stairs – she looked like she was about 16, and she had somehow managed the remarkable art of being able to traverse stairs and look at a mobile's screen at the same time.

"Yeah," Carmen said as she didn't look up.

"Go and make Lizzie some tea, would you?"

Then, Carmen did look up, and saw Lizzie standing there. "Oh my god! Lizzie! Heeey!" she almost ran up to her, and the two of them hugged. Carmen had only been about… 11, the last time they'd seen each other. The little girl Lizzie had left behind had become a young woman. How things changed.

"Oh, Pat," Carmen said, as Lizzie followed her into the kitchen. "I have some forms for you to sign, or… something."

* * *

After Carmen had made Lizzie her tea, they'd sat around the table in the kitchen (which was not meant to be a place where one ate or drank, unless special permission had been given). At one point, a few kids passed her - some she recognised, some she didn't. The ones that recognised her said hi. She suddenly realised, that she was missed.

The conversation went as many of Lizzie's conversations did. She was worried she'd be a little too honest about her situation, because she didn't want to scare Carmen about the world, and was worried that by telling her about her own situation, she'd make her extremely anxious. But she couldn't lie to her – and perhaps Carmen had her head screwed on a little better than Lizzie.

"That guy," Carmen obviously meant the Doctor. "He's not really an inspector, is he?"

Lizzie hesitated. She didn't actually know.

"Lizzie. He's not – oh my god, he's not a paedo-"

"Look," Lizzie hushed her. "Something… I don't know… something weird is going on."

As Lizzie told her story, Carmen looked increasingly sickened by what she was hearing. And then, Lizzie realised that Carmen was crying, and she felt really guilty because she had wanted more than anything else to avoid upsetting her.

"I – I'm really sorry," Lizzie said. "I – I didn't mean to– "

Carmen looked up at Lizzie, wiping tears from her eyes. "You haven't heard, have you?"

Carmen told Lizzie her story: there was a kid from the home who'd been found dead a few weeks ago, with a mask on his face. And when Pat had prised it off, they'd found exactly what Lizzie had just described to Carmen: his eyes, ears, mouth and nostrils had all been sewn shut. Lizzie felt terrible for her, especially about how she'd had to face that actually happening, in reality, at only 16.

"Pat tried to keep it as quiet as possible," Carmen shrugged. "But a few of us found out, and he made us swear that we wouldn't tell any of the younger kids. Obviously, they know the kid died – but they don't know… you know… how he was found."

Lizzie could not believe that something she'd become mixed up in, already had led to something so terrible for the children of the home she'd grown up in. And yet somehow, the Doctor remained mostly unfazed. Why go to the children first? After all, if that'd happened weeks ago, before anything like it had happened in the rest of the town, why would the creatures go for the innocent before anyone else?

"Carmen – I don't – I mean, I don't really know much about the Doctor. Not much at all. But I believe he knows what he's talking about, mostly. And I think he genuinely wants to help here."

"How did you even meet him?" Carmen asked.

"He just sort of… turned up, over there, on the street corner."

* * *

Lizzie knocked on the door to Pat's office, and heard his deep Irish voice call out "Come in!" She did so, leaving the door open, as a matter of long-ingrained habit. As she entered, Pat was there, talking to the Doctor.

She didn't want to get him embroiled in all this. It wasn't fair on him – he was already dealing with the death of one. For someone so nice, who had treated her well, and so many others well, he didn't deserve being involved in this horrific matter any further. "Pat, can you leave us quickly?"

"But, why – ?" Pat looked between the two of them.

"Please," she said, a more insistent this time. Pat did as he was asked.

"There was…" Lizzie gulped, as she tried to tell the Doctor what she had learned from Carmen. She didn't think she could continue. But she did. "There was a child, and the mask did its thing, and– "

"I know. Pat told me," the Doctor said, his face grim. Lizzie could see he was just as disgusted as her – but he did a better job at hiding it. Perhaps too well? "It's here, Lizzie. You were right. The Maiden is here, somewhere."

"But – Doctor," she began. "A child is dead."

"I know. And I'm going to do everything in my power to stop the Maiden from killing again, doing whatever it is she's doing, because– "

"It's just – like – I don't think it's fair, that she's focusing on children," she said.

"No. It isn't."

"And you're kind of… you seem…. pretty relaxed about it all. Just because the child was from a care home, it doesn't mean he wasn't loved. He was, a lot, so don't just treat it like another casualty, like you've treated everyone else so far. It's been a bit like – "oh no, there's another one." And you've not shown much understanding that these are people who have their own lives. Apart from the boy. He was meant to have a life – and now he won't. And, I think that's …"

The Doctor sat on top of the desk, in silence, looking at his feet, ashamed.

"You care," he said.

She held herself back from stating the obvious, like he'd just done. Of course she cared. People were precious; they didn't come along often. But all of this came out rather awkwardly when she finally spoke, "Erm, yeah. Like. Quite a bit."

The Doctor looked at her and smiled. "Thank you."

She didn't really know what he was thanking her for – was it just one of those ambiguous thank yous that people say when they've finally understood something that was confusing them before? Or, was it from the heart, stated awkwardly, and incompletely, like she had just done?

"Thank you, so mu-"

But the Doctor's words stopped with the scream that came from outside.

* * *

Loads of kids were standing at the French windows, looking out into the garden.

It was a huge garden – a heaven for children, an immense playground for their imagination. Lizzie had memories of walking around this very garden when she was really small, wearing little red welly boots, and a bright yellow mackintosh that was just a little bit too big. Sometimes the bottom part of the garden got really muddy, and became swamp-like, and it had to be closed off. But Lizzie used to duck under the safety tape that they'd put around it, and walk out into the bog, and just to walk around in it, enjoying the feel of the soft, squishy mud through the protective layer of bright red rubber.

And she thought of how, years later, when in the dog days of summer, she would sit out on the patio, reading while she watched the younger children just… enjoying themselves, without a care, and she wished that she could be like that again. It was a force so powerful that sometimes, while lying in bed at night, thinking of it, the memory would become real again, almost touchable.

The memory shattered now in the face of a new and dangerous reality, as she watched the Doctor push through the crowd of children to get to the French window.

Lizzie joined him and the children as they looked out at a spectral figure, draped in white, with a veil covering the now iconic mask. And there was a little girl – not very old – backing away from the figure as it raised its veil with a single skeletal finger, revealing an ornate azure floral pattern on the right side of its face. It seemed to smile at them, and then vanished into the trees behind it.

After it had gone, the Doctor opened the doors and ran down into the garden – with Lizzie close behind him. When he arrived at the little girl, she seemed fine, but shaken. The Doctor, as if he had done his job, stood up and walked over to the trees, following the direction of the figure. Lizzie, in his place, knelt down beside the little girl. She didn't recognise her; the girl could only have been about as old as Lizzie had been when she had come down here to play as a little girl.

Pat was running towards them, like a father would run to see if his children were all right. Lizzie gave the shivering girl the kindest and most genuine of smiles.  
"Don't be scared."

And the little girl nodded in understanding as Lizzie hugged her.

"Tell Pat to make sure he keeps the other children in the house. Yeah?"

"Yes," the girl agreed.

"Good girl."

Pat arrived and scooped the girl up in his arms, thanking Lizzie, before he ran over to the other children.

Lizzie wished for nothing more than for Pat to be able to help her, to give her the advice she needed now, or for Maggie to suddenly appear and give her a few comforting words. But Maggie was off doing what she did best, and Pat had somebody else who needed his help more.

Her life here had been calm. It hadn't been easy, but nothing much had happened. Well, quite a bit had happened. But in comparison to whatever was going on now, it seemed simple and trivial, when in fact that's the one thing it hadn't been. Once upon a time, she had feared not being liked in school. Then she'd feared exam results. Then she feared debt, and then eviction, and more recently, a masked creature that wanted to kill her.

Now, she couldn't think of anything more to be scared about. She couldn't see anything except some very scared children. And her words would not allow her to arrange them in a way that could describe how she felt, but she wanted to help protect the little girl as much as she possibly could, no matter what it took.  
The world around her seemed to pass by in slow-motion, as she turned and stumbled over ground that had once marked her childhood, down to the gap in the trees where she knew she could pass through and into the woods.

All of the children up there, looking at all this from behind the windows of the French doors, would remember this day – it would haunt them. The memory would be passed down to their children and to their children's children, and eventually it would become a story, a fairy tale, for the simple purpose of scaring children before they went to sleep.

Just as she had when she met the Doctor, Lizzie now had another choice to make: she could run and be with him or she could stay here and run away from him.

Lizzie promised the little girl she wouldn't be long, as she turned and ran into the trees.

* * *

The Doctor was waiting for her on the other side, beyond the trees.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

She wanted to shout at him, to tell him that of course she wasn't alright. Her whole life had just changed forever, all within the space of a couple of hours, and he was asking her the sort of pointless question that he might've also asked a stranger on the street.

"Yes," she lied, and she could tell that he knew she was lying. "You?"

"Yes," he lied, and she could tell he was lying.

They continued down the pathway for a second in silence, before the Doctor asked the most obvious question.

"Where does this path go?"

Lizzie knew this place like the back of her hand. She'd walked it so many times, when she was younger, because it was where she came when she wanted to be alone.

They had arrived.

It was a woodland clearing, surrounded by old trees – and in the middle, was the oldest, a beautiful old oak that held inside its trunk hundreds and hundreds of rings, etched into its many layers, like the lines on the face of an old, wise man. It stood before them, calm and peaceful, with the beautiful summer sunlight streaming through its leaves.

Dangling from one of its largest branches was a rope swing, tied on as if it were being gripped tightly and kindly by the tree itself; as if the oak would never let the occupant fall, and would keep them safe forever. Its trunk and branches and leaves were all reflected in a small and clear pool of water near its base; it was like a mirror, and when Lizzie looked into it, she saw herself looking back.

16, 17, or something years ago, not long after Lizzie had first arrived at the home that had seemed so big and scary, filled with big and scary people, including scary Jenny, the woman who was meant to be looking after her, Lizzie had gone walking down to the bottom of the garden with Maggie. They hadn't known each other long – but Maggie had helped Lizzie into her little red wellies, and she'd made sure her mackintosh was on and zipped up, and when Lizzie had pretended to do the same with Maggie, and Maggie just went along with it. And they walked, and Lizzie, at the bottom of the garden, saw the trees. She knew she wasn't allowed to, and normally she would follow the rules to the letter. But she was intrigued, and so once, when nobody was looking, she went down there, ducked through the trees, followed the path – and discovered this place.

She had come here a lot when she was young.. When nobody was looking, she would sneak out the back of the care home, and walk to the end of the path, where she had her tree and her rope swing and her pond. Nobody else knew about it… well, someone, once, must've known about it, otherwise there wouldn't have been the rope swing. But whoever that person was, they were long forgotten, and now the only one to know about its existence was Lizzie. It was her escape.  
When the world got too tough and the people too difficult, she would just run into the woods, like the woods in a fairy story, and eventually she would meet the oak, and its mighty canopy of leaves that protected her like a warm blanket, and be calmed by the way the one branch would hold her and her swing, no matter what. And there, Lizzie would sit on the swing, and gently sway above the ground, and if she felt daring, swing out above the pond itself.

When she was a child, and she had first discovered it, she held the rope so hard that her hands bled when she finally let go. As she grew older, she held on as hard as she had as a child, but as a teenager, she no longer felt the need to hold so tightly; she knew she would be safe.

In a way, when she stepped back in here, looking for the Masked Maiden, it was like coming home.

But now someone else was here too, and that scared her. Someone or something that was murdering people, had found her place where she escaped to. A creature of nightmares had found her home.

Lizzie could see it, motionless, watching them, from the other side of the pond. it was a nice summer's day, with almost no breeze, although even if there were a breeze, Lizzie sensed that some quality of the crisp, white, cloth, was helping it stay in exactly the same position.

"You're not real," the Doctor said to its "face." That confused Lizzie, because he was a man who flew around time and space in a phone box. The only reason he didn't want to believe that this creature was real, was because it had come from his nightmares.

The Maiden didn't reply at first, although it did lift its veil and revealed more of the artwork on the mask underneath. It was perfect, like exquisite painting.

"Not real to you, perhaps."

It spoke in a clear, female voice, as pure as the white robes and veils it wore, and with an air of unwavering confidence.

The Doctor shrugged, as if in partial agreement. "Then why are you here? Why take the children?"

Although the Maiden did not move perceptibly, something inside it seemed to bristle for a second, as if the Doctor had said something that had disturbed something deep within.

"I am looking for the prize."

"What prize?"

"I bring peace and tranquillity," the Maiden whispered, the words leaving its lips which were non-existent, and yet its words floated through the air to them, clearly, unmuffled by the mask.

"By stitching their faces up?" the Doctor responded, his voice quivering with anger and contempt.

"It is for their protection, so that they do not have to see how barbaric the world is. If you will not understand, Doctor – then I shall speak to someone who does."  
"You don't bring peace and protection! You trap them, you force them to conform! Turning them into nothing," the Doctor protested.

The Maiden turned towards Lizzie.

And Lizzie realised something.

"Not seeing the world doesn't make it any easier. It makes it harder." Lizzie wasn't quite sure where she'd got that from, but she stuck with it. The Doctor sighed and was going to say something, but didn't.

"But what you're doing," Lizzie decided to continue. "You're taking their identity, their faces – you're not protecting them from the real world, you are the real world. You just turn children into... drones."

"Such a terrified little girl," the Maiden's voice was heavy and sad as she spoke. She ignored Lizzie. "So nervous and anxious. The world scared you. The world still scares you."

Lizzie found herself amused by the essential irony of the Maiden's statements. Its intention was to protect people from the horrors of the world, and yet in doing so, it had become a horror story for children that had scared even the Doctor.

"And are you, I don't know, erm …attempting to do what you do… to every child?"

If the Maiden's mask did not always show a faint smile, then it might have smiled now.

"There is one child in particular. But she sleeps, now. She sleeps so very far away, and her dreams are not dreams, but they are plagued by the fuel of nightmares."

Lizzie wanted to find the child, "the prize," the Maiden was looking for– she wanted to find them and save them, and stop the Maiden from its twisted donation of 'peace and tranquillity', or whatever it had said.

"Why?" Lizzie suddenly asked. "Sorry… to be so…"

But the Doctor was nodding in support of Lizzie and her question and then gestured for the Maiden to answer.  
"I bring good to the world."

"No," the Doctor said. "You don't."

. "I'm really sorry," Lizzie began, "…. But … you won't find your prize here. We're happy here, and…. we don't need you … to protect us, as you say. You don't offer us protection, you offer us a way to bury our heads in the sand."

Lizzie looked to the Doctor, not because she was looking for support, but because he reminded her of something

"Fairy tales are good," she continued. "Adults think fairy tales are just for kids but they're wrong... fairy tales are just... cracked mirrors of the real world. Not just means of escape but… means of understanding too. Anyway… I could be wrong so– "

"No, Lizzie," said the Doctor. "You're absolutely right."

"Very well," the Maiden sighed. It was almost like an admission of guilt – but the Maiden remained motionless, watching Lizzie.

"What are you doing?" the Doctor said.

"The prize," the Maiden said again.

"We've literally just said, you can't have 'the prize."

"But I already have her."

Lizzie knew, at that moment, without even needing to be told, who the prize was. For some reason, the Maiden had decided it was her.

But it didn't make sense to Lizzie, why such a creature would traverse galaxies just to find her. Lizzie. She didn't mean anything. She was tiny, in comparison to the rest of the universe.

"No. No, that doesn't make sense," the Doctor was beginning to realise as well – and he looked just as bemused as Lizzie.

"It makes… perfect sense," the Maiden said as she reached out a hand, beckoning Lizzie to come toward her. "So scared, Elizabeth. So very scared. But I can help you. I can save you."

"I – I -," Lizzie suddenly realised she was crying. "I don't want to just – I don't want to give up…"

"I will help you, Elizabeth. Come to me."

Lizzie hated herself for admitting that there was even a tiny part of her wanting to go to her. There had been more than a few times in her life when she would have given in, accepted this invitation and even would have run towards the Maiden and her promise of protection and support. But now, she realized that even though the rest of the universe scared her, there would always be the stars, and she could face all the demons of the world and beyond, when the stars were watching her like they had all her life.

And she knew that hiding from them would not bring the peace that the Maiden promised. She could stay, and she could and should face it.

Lizzie backed away slowly, and the Doctor followed her. The Maiden did not move – it just stood watching Lizzie in silence. It had failed to claim its prize. Lizzie began to wonder – what happens now? Did it stay and find someone else to prey upon?

Then, the Maiden placed a bony hand to its face and gently it pulled off its mask.

Underneath, where a face should've been, there was nothing. No hair, no eyes, no mouth, no nostrils, no ears.

Lizzie assumed that the Maiden had been with the mask for so long, it had done what it did to everyone else and closed her eyes for good; that she had been like that for so many years, that the "wounds" had all healed up.

"It doesn't have a mission anymore," the Doctor explained as he watched the blank face looking at them. "It's realised that people are not afraid. And so – it no longer sees itself as necessary."

Lizzie just felt sorry for her, whoever she was. Perhaps the Maiden been scared once too, and Lizzie wished that somebody had been there to help her.

* * *

"So… why was it after me? The universe is huge…" Lizzie looked at the Doctor sitting on the swing beside her. Upon Dunsworth hill there used to stand a castle. It was ruins, now. There was a set of swings, though, just nearby, so the children of today would play in the grounds. The sun was setting over the town – they could see it all from where they sat. Lizzie could see home. There was a breeze, and Lizzie rocked on the swing, gently, back and forth, letting the gentle motion lead her into a state of calm and serenity.

"I don't know. But you're right, Lizzie, the universe is huge. And it will go and find someone else, I should think," the Doctor replied.

"How can you be so natural about that? There could be another child who's going to die."

"I can't save everyone, Lizzie."

"But we can try."

The Doctor didn't really know what to say to that because he knew, at heart, she was right. He'd also heard her say "we." But his only response was, "Why were you so sad?" The Doctor had changed the subject.

"I was scared. Perhaps just nervous. And I still am. But, yeah, I guess, I'm fine. Probably. And … I could ask you the same."

"I'm sorry?"

Shouldn't have said that. Really, definitely, shouldn't have said it out loud.

"No, don't worry, it doesn't matter," she tried desperately to dig herself out of the hole she was digging herself into.

"No – seriously. I'm interested."

"I mean – no, it's stupid."

"Lizzie, please. Stop putting yourself down. It's not fair on yourself."

"Well" she began, "You just seemed upset. Subdued, kind of. And then when we first got talking, it was kind of like the way people are when they're close to crying but not actually crying, as if you were reminded of something. And then, after a while, when you were back in the TARDIS, and it was like there was a different person there – as if you were back, doing something you loved, for the first time in… ages."

The Doctor looked at her, his eyes were tinged with sadness. She realised that she was right, and he was grieving for someone.

"You don't need to worry about it," the Doctor said.

Lizzie disagreed. She knew he needed help, and she felt… responsible. As if she were the one who to give it to him.

"I want to."

"It's just – it's not a great time right now."

She knew that. But she also knew from experience that not talking about it wasn't a good thing, and she didn't want that to happen to the Doctor. The incredulous look she gave him was enough to keep him talking.

"I had a friend. Well – yes. I had a friend. Her name was Jasmine, and we travelled together, in time and space. But then – she died. Saving the universe."  
"I've travelled with other people as well," the Doctor continued. "But …. always…. I end up on my own."

Of course… The lonely old man. Lizzie had seen it from the start. And when he got into his TARDIS, and started showing off for her – that was when he felt as if he were back there, in the past, travelling with…

"There was someone else, as well. Tommy. He was the one meant to become Prime Minister, and then… couldn't."

Lizzie remembered. This was the person who was meant to help her country.

"And then – another old, old friend of mine. Robin, she found her own life – and she lived it."

But not with you, Lizzie realized. The Doctor had lost so many people, and she felt guilty that he was the one who had to go back in time to stop the Maiden from getting her, to save her, to save Lizzie – when, in fact, the person who needed saving more than anyone else, was sitting opposite her.

"And up there," the Doctor pointed at the orange-tinted sky, which felt the final frontier between their swings and the universe, as the sun was setting over the town around them. "There's a war."

She hadn't dared to ask about what things were like beyond Earth. She certainly knew about strange things happening here, but had wondered what it was like in space…and time. She knew that in the grand scheme of things, her life was tiny, and the universe around her was so much bigger – and because of that, she'd always believed in aliens. But she hadn't wanted to pry.

"It's only just beginning," he continued. "it's a war between my people and a race called the Daleks. And it's not the sort of war that's going to be over quickly. It is going to become the most vicious, and cruel, and barbaric and prolonged conflict the universe has ever faced."

Lizzie looked up at the beautiful sky – it seemed unnatural that such a war could be happening in a universe so pretty. But she also knew all about masks.  
"My wife is up there," the Doctor caught Lizzie's flicker of recognition, as she realised that he was referring to the woman she had seen in the monochrome photo, the woman in the wedding dress. "She's a doctor. An actual doctor."

Lizzie hadn't even realised he wasn't an actual doctor.

"And she's helping people." The Doctor was smiling the wistful. prideful sort of smile that people have when they think about their loved ones that are far, far away, but are still doing something brilliant. "The places that are damaged in the war, the people who are hurt – she helps them."

"She sounds really lovely."

"She is."

Lizzie now saw him as he truly was.. The mystery was gone – she knew who he was, whom he'd lost, why he was sad. The man with the bigger-on-the-inside box. And they sat there, the two of them, lost in the moment, as a war raged on in the universe above their heads, while a world of fear still existed around them.

He turned to her.

"Come with me." It wasn't a question, but as a plea. She could hear the touch of desperation in his voice.

But she couldn't just run from all her problems and pretend they didn't exist. She knew it. He knew it too, and she could see he was worried that she'd say no. But just as the best way to handle her fears and anxieties had been to face them head on, maybe the best way to face the rest of the universe was to face it head on as well.

She wouldn't be running away with the Doctor. She'd be facing the universe with him. Wasn't that a fairytale in itself?

All her life, she'd watched the stars, and realised how tiny she was. And they'd been comforting to her, those great big lights in the dark. But at the same time – there was that darkness. And that scared her, more than anything else: that the universe was just a huge sprawling mass of everything, with their tiny, tiny, tiny, little world marooned in the middle. That feeling of being so small wasn't scary – it was being terrified by what was so big.

But ultimately, there was no hesitation for Lizzie.

"Okay." That's all she said.

The TARDIS was waiting for her, not far away.

She left the swing – Lizzie had always loved swings; her childhood-self had found them very comforting. Now, she glanced behind her to see it rocking sadly in the breeze. Through the warm air of this summer evening, she strode. The Doctor was inside, waiting for her, ready to dance around the console again, and ready to rediscover good all over again. They had the whole of the universe ahead of them, tens of hundreds of thousands of millions of billions of stars and times and worlds and galaxies, all within reach of the doors of the box. She was right outside it now, with all of that ahead of her.

Elizabeth Darwin took one last look at the town she called home.

She stepped inside the TARDIS.

And their lives began again.


	4. 502 Cleo and the Mummy

**Prologue**

 **48 BC**

 _"It was the night Ptolomy fell."  
_  
She stood on the balcony, overlooking her great city. Alexandria. The claustrophobic, muggy weather that constricted her, day in, day out, had been vanquished by the night winds, blowing over the Mediterranean, and turning the perpetual daytime heat into a cold and bitter night. The sea had turned from its shimmering, translucent green, and had morphed into a great pool of inky, unearthly black. As she stood there, watching over her city during the aftermath of the battle, during the aftermath of the day, she imagined what secrets would could hide there, in the shadowed depths of the oceans.

Now the sun had gone in and the chill had arrived, her bare arms were spattered with goosepimples, and the temperatures crept through to the skin. The men from Rome underestimated the conditions of the night, making them angrier than they already were. She had overheard whisperings from some of the men that Caesar was not impressed with the actions of her brother.

They would meet tomorrow, she decided. She would capitalise on their mutual distaste.

Except, there was an eerie quality to the night. The evening winds had calmed now, no longer gusting and throwing her flowing, hair, wild into oblivion. Instead it was perfectly still. The atmosphere was even stranger by the silence in the streets below. It was too quiet.

Then she turned, and there was someone stood in her bedchamber.

She could see the figure through the door into the room. It was waiting, right on the far side. Motionless, it stood, just out from the shadows, so it remained cloaked in a hood of darkness, while the wall torches illuminated its hideous face in an orange glow.

When she realised what it was, she realised that the figure was not possible.

It was a dead man.

No, it was a dead _boy_.

He was bandaged up, as the dead always were. His legs and his body were wrapped tight in bandages – they were freshly applied. Except, they were not bound fully – some gaps between the material were left open, with… contraptions of sorts… twine, perhaps, running from different parts of the body.  
When her eyes met the boy's eyes, she gulped, and stepped into her bedchamber.

Half of its head was roughly bandaged, the other half left open to the world. The half that had been tended to was similar to the body, with… devices, running from it, to other parts of the torso. The other distinguishable feature was the eye – it was not covered by the fabric. But it was not a human eye either. A great, empty, black socket remained, deeper and darker than the sea. When she stared into it, she saw no element of humanity.

The open half was well and truly human, though a deep gash ran from the top of the face to the bottom. She examined it, to try and make some sense of who it was.

"Who are you?" she asked, when she could not work it out.

There was no response, so she tried again.

"Answer me. I am Cleopatra. Queen of Egypt."

All it could do was stand and watch her.

"Who are you!"

The mummy said nothing, but still it watched her.

She blinked.

And it vanished into the night.

 **THE EIGHTH DOCTOR ADVENTURES**

 **SERIES 5 - EPISODE 2**

 **CLEO AND THE MUMMY**

 **Written by Ed Goundrey-Smith**

 **Based on an Idea by Sam Baker**

"Ever heard of spontaneity?"

The Doctor watched Lizzie as she scanned the tall shelf, looming above her. Usually when people stepped into a box that could travel anywhere in time and space, they did not ask to be taken to a library. On Earth.

The History section of the place was huge, with shelves taller than houses bursting with a million tales and a million lifetimes. Lizzie loved libraries, and she loved getting lost in them – this one especially, with its historical section being so rich and in depth.

"You know, I've got one of these on the TARDIS."

Lizzie still didn't say anything, she just kept tracing a finger along the dusty spines of the books. There were so many histories and encyclopaedias, and so many of them hadn't been taken out in years – but still they remained, as crucial documents, the only available links to the past.

At least, that's what Lizzie had _thought_.

"I _know_ this library," she replied to the Doctor's previous remark, and he looked around confused, having completely forgotten what he'd said about the TARDIS library.

He stepped back, leaving her to it, and leaned against a table.

"You know," a voice behind him said. "Libraries are amazing. They take people to brand new places. You should let her explore."

The Doctor turned, to see a woman, sat over a MacBook, with circular glasses perched on her nose.

"Sorry?" he asked, slightly taken aback.

"Sorry, forgive me," she stood up, offering a hand to shake. "Ameera Iqbal."

He returned the handshake. "The Doctor."

"Of what?" she enquired.

"Of everything."

"Cool. I'm a professor. Egyptology," she said, gesturing to the thick tome beside her laptop.

"Fascinating subject," the Doctor leaned in closer, if slightly confused she hadn't bothered to ask about his doctorate.

"Very much so. I'm writing a paper at the moment on Cleopatra and her life. Interesting woman."

"I can imagine," the Doctor took a seat. He could see Lizzie drifting over to them. "Go on then. Most interesting thing about Cleopatra."

Ameera thought for a few seconds – although it was not as if she had to think. Merely organise her thoughts.

"The fact nobody knows anything about her."

The Doctor looked intrigued. Lizzie looked _especially_ intrigued. A historian herself, this was her idea of a brilliant day out.

"I mean, this," she pointed to her laptop. "Is basically just conjecture. We know a bit, from some of the Roman records left behind, and maybe the odd hieroglyphic here and there. But other than that… nothing."

"Isn't history just conjecture?" the Doctor challenged her.

"That's a whole new can of worms," Ameera sighed. "But Cleopatra especially. A complete enigma to everyone. And so misinterpreted by people, I believe. But hey. History is interesting like that. So many different interpretations. Who knows what really happened?"

When she looked up, the strange Doctor and his friend had vanished.

* * *

Lizzie stepped into the TARDIS, shutting the doors behind her as the Doctor started fiddling with the controls. They were both thinking exactly the same thing.

The central column slowly rose, up and down, and the TARDIS roared into a great, rasping life.

"Cleopatra! Don't know why I haven't thought of her before. Actually, I probably have…"

Lizzie didn't have a clue what he was talking about half the time. All she could think about now was that somehow, she was travelling in time. The science defied her, but she didn't care.

"Time travel, Lizzie. We can go back, we can go forward. And sideways. Remember that. Especially sideways."

"… what other people have you met?" she asked, as the question suddenly came to her. If one had a time machine, it would make sense that they'd met a good many interesting people.

"I met Da Vinci. Anne Boleyn as well. I had a picnic with William the Conqueror – actually, it was more of a pre-conquest feast, _and_ I did life-drawing with Joseph Stalin."

Lizzie wondered who the model was. But she listened to the Doctor as she rattled off the list, with a life she hadn't heard in him before, an excitement, an enjoyment – he was happy, then and there.

The bigger-on-the-inside box stopped.

They had arrived.

Her previous TARDIS trips had been within the realms of normality – only a few streets away, nothing too unusual. But ahead of her was a world that nobody else from her world had walked on. Something that shouldn't ever happen, but something that was about to happen.

There was a strange feeling inside her, a fusion between excitement and fear, stomach-churning but in a good way. It was as if butterflies were fluttering about inside her, but they were happy, their wings beating in euphoria. Her hand connected with the door and gave it a gentle push, as she wanted to savour this feeling of being somewhere brand new and somewhere impossible, so she wouldn't forget it again for as long as she lived.

The door gently swung open, revealing a whole world in front of her. They were only parked in an alley-way, a fairly unassuming sight, but little did anyone else wondering around know, that this would be the alley-way to have broadened Lizzie's experience of the universe more than anyone could have realised.

It was excitement beyond anything she had imagined previously.

* * *

As soon as Lizzie stepped out of the TARDIS, she had to take off her jumper and throw it inside. It was as if someone had slapped her in the face with the heat, and she suddenly felt unexpectedly faint. She took a few steps more down the alley-way of dreams, admiring the two sun-bleached stone buildings on either side, in awe of how real they were..

The street ahead of them was congested with market stalls – wooden tables bordered the entire walkway, covered in a plethora of goods. There were spices, and had Lizzie not been so knocked back by the heat, she would be able to smell them. Hardened clay pots, recently dried in the heat of the sun, were being sold from another stall, and precisely entwined wicker baskets sold from a third. Sugar canes, cut down from the banks of the Nile, were being bartered away. There was a constant overlay of sound to the proceedings, of the townspeople going about their normal, humdrum lives.

"They all speak English," Lizzie observed, as the Doctor stepped out behind her.

"The TARDIS translates them."

She wondered if there was anything the TARDIS couldn't do, as the two of them set off, making their way down the street, passing the people and the stalls and the buying and selling as they went. Lizzie watched as her feet made light footprints in the sand and dust beneath them, and she made an impossible mark on the world. Anxiety piqued within her as she worried whether that footprint would change the course of human history forever. It was irrational, of course, considering the Doctor had done life-drawing with Stalin, but even so. Lizzie made the executive decision that she was going to push everything aside. No worrying today.

She realised as they walked, that they must look so out of place, in modern fashions – but nobody seemed to care.

The Doctor looked at her, as if he were waiting for her to say it, his script on pause – and clearly he were enjoying the pause.

"It's because they're all so busy, doing what they do. We're just passers-by," she realised.

In a peculiar way, the world hadn't changed much.

"So," the Doctor grinned. Although he had done this so many times before, he always felt so much more alive when seeing it again, through the eyes of somebody brand new. "Antirhodos is over… there," the Doctor pointed in a rough direction.

"… and… how do we… I don't know, meet her?"

"I usually just walk in."

"And… people let you do that?"

"No, not usually."

That was reassuring. She watched as the Doctor strode confidently on, and she had to remind herself to just go with the flow. If she was hanged or beheaded for trespassing, so what? There was something unreal about the way the Doctor walked, as if he could be quite confident about swaggering around in the past. Lizzie tried to swagger after him with similar levels of confidence, and just looked a bit stupid, so she stopped.

* * *

"My Lord Caesar."

The Roman Emperor, dressed in long, blood-red robes strode up to her, and knelt down. He kissed her hand, and then stood again.

"My Queen."

Caesar gestured for her to sit, and she did so. Caesar sat opposite her.

"A great victory, my Lord," Cleopatra took a sip from her wine. "And I am eternally thankful that my kingdom has been returned to its… rightful Queen."  
"For sure," Caesar agreed. "I believe your tyrant brother died in the fighting."

Cleopatra thought back to the events of the previous night. Death had always seemed so normal and so every day. Except this time, it was her brother – and her brother was her brother. However, he had become someone else, threatening their kingdom by becoming embroiled in conflicts he shouldn't. She had lost her brother and she was sad, but she was devastated for the person he had come. She was determined to rule in the way he hadn't.

Many other people had died too. Cleopatra held herself together over it. People died all the time. It was not a problem.

Although it had become a problem, ever since the dead began to walk.

"Queen?"

Realising she had practically left the room, Cleopatra realised who she was sat opposite.

"Yes, my Lord. And a good thing – my brother is not fit to live alongside us."

"To Rome I shall return," Caesar said. "Though I will leave men here, to protect your throne."

Cleopatra hesitated, and her face turned.

"You are… spying on me?"

"I am protecting you."

She was wary of them. Her kingdom had so easily gone to war over rulers before, and she did not want to allow it to happen again. Especially if Egypt was to be ruled from the backdoor of Rome.

"My Lord, you must understand. Seas of blood have been shed over my rule. Although I may let your men stay for the good of the protection of my throne, I will see to it that they do not dare rule for me."

Caesar gave a coy smile. "They… shall not."

"After all. This is an alliance that must work both ways. Endeavor to make sure it does not break down."

Caesar sat back, impressed at the force of the woman sat opposite him. It did not seem as if he would be able to have his say for much longer.  
Queen Cleopatra stood up, and her robes trailed behind her as she left.

As the Queen made her way out into the passageway beyond Caesar's chambers, a handmaiden walked beside her.

"My Queen," she began. "There is a doctor here to see you."

Admittedly, Cleopatra was confused. She had not sent for a doctor.

And yet, she said nothing.

* * *

Set on an island, Cleopatra's palace was magnificent. And yet, in a thousand years or so, a great tsunami would transform it into nothing but dust.  
From the chamber that Lizzie and the Doctor stood, they could hear the Mediterranean gently buffeting the stone bricks outside, with salty, frothy foam bursting up the sides of the lighthouse. The sea was gentle, and Lizzie stood watching the emerald waters lap gently far beneath where she stood. It would be perfect weather to bathe in. Gentle though they seemed, however, as the waves crawled up, it was as if they were a nest of blackbird chicks, fighting each other for seeds and nuts and worms, clawing through the masses.

The Doctor was pacing the Queen's chamber, admiring the illustrious artworks on the wall, so antique and exquisite. It was a whole room of fineries, and yet it was not extravagant. Silk curtains were drawn beside the window looking down onto the ocean below, and a simple, wooden throne was positioned at the head of the room. A rug paved the way from the small door at the far side of the room to the throne, patterned with detailed intricacies. They were, of course, breaking all protocol – it was the rug they were meant to walk down, and not the Queen.

His guise was of a Doctor – after all, people lied best when keeping it close to the truth. Lizzie still didn't think they would last particularly long – they had just broken into the Queen's palace, and made their way into the throne room.

Eventually, the far door opened, and Cleopatra waited for them.

Though the stories got many things wrong about Cleopatra, it was no secret that she was a figure of glorious beauty – her hair ran to just below the neck, and was blacker than the night. A simple, gold headdress adorned her, and it was almost a collar of cut jewels, of emeralds brighter than the sea outside, and of rubies darker than the blood-red curtains, that she wore perched across her neck. She wore simple, white robes beneath it, and she did not seem startled to find the Doctor and Lizzie waiting in her throne room.

Lizzie gulped, terrified of the woman who strode confidently in the room, a historical misconception living and breathing in front of her. Stories had been written about this woman, and yet nobody where she came from knew the truth. As time trawled on she had become buried under layers of manipulated history, until what remained was a mere caricature of the original. And now Lizzie was watching her, determined to see her for who she truly was, and not the fake version spun in the modern day.

"You are… a doctor, yes?"

"I am, my Queen," the Doctor replied, stepping away from admiring one of the paintings. Lizzie stepped into the room, and the Doctor turned to her.  
"Cleopatra," he whispered to Lizzie, to try and make sure Cleopatra herself couldn't hear.

"Comin' atcha," Lizzie murmured.

"I give you the last Pharaoh of ancient Egypt, and you make 90s music puns?" the Doctor scowled.

Lizzie didn't have him down as one for 90s R&B.

Cleopatra nodded, and turned to her guard. "You will leave us."

"Yes, my Queen."

The guard left, and Cleopatra entered the throne room, gently shutting the door behind her. She turned to Lizzie.

"This is my assistant," the Doctor explained. "She is an expert in many matters that are beyond my understanding."

Lizzie thought that he was probably right, but if he ever called her his assistant again she'd get very cross.

"Then she may stay," Cleopatra did not make her way to the throne. "How did you know to come?"

"Some of your servants believed you were acting strangely, my Queen. They thought that perhaps, you had come down with something," the Doctor lied, playing along in a bid to extract whatever mysterious horror had made Cleopatra call a doctor. Lizzie, meanwhile, felt something strangely liberating about lying to an ancient Egyptian Queen.

Cleopatra looked shocked, but she didn't question him.

"You must not speak to anyone about our conversation," Cleopatra explained. The Doctor approached her, a warm smile on his face. "If you did so, I would fear for my throne."

"Of course, my Queen."

There was a pause, and Cleopatra stood, deep in thought. The future of her kingdom depended on what she said now. She made her way to one of the benches, and sat down.

"I am being watched."

The Doctor waited, though already his interest had been piqued.

"I am being watched," she continued. "By the dead."

Unlike most doctors, who would have backed away, the Doctor moved closer to the Queen, while Lizzie waited a fair distance away.

"You must think I am… ill," Cleopatra muttered, suddenly realising what she had said outside. "But I swear to you," she looked at the Doctor, and their eyes met, hers with an earnestness. "I'm not lying."

"No," the Doctor shook his head. "I don't believe you are. Who are you being watched by, Cleo? What do they look like?"

Lizzie let out an audible gasp at the way the Doctor addressed her – not that she had a problem with it, she was just concerned he was going to be… beheaded or something.

But the Queen did not bat an eyelid, as whatever was watching her terrified her beyond words, and she would be willing to forgive such insolence if it meant the dead were dealt with.

"A mummy. It was last night, and I was in my bedchamber. And it stood there, and… it was dead. It did not move – it stayed, perfectly still, watching me."  
"Ohh… fascinating. Cleo, stay calm. We're going to find them."

"Wait," Cleo looked at him in disbelief for the first time. "You believe me?"

"Absolutely," the Doctor looked over to Lizzie, and she nodded. "So does Lizzie."

She most certainly did. After everything that Lizzie Darwin had seen in the last few days (few days? Her entire perception of time had been completely warped. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd slept), she would believe anything. Lizzie gave Cleopatra a friendly smile – which wasn't something she ever thought she'd do.

"Believe me, Cleo. We'll find them."

The Doctor left the throne room, leaving Lizzie stood looking at a bemused Cleopatra.

"He believed me?" she said again.

"I think he sees this stuff a lot," Lizzie took a deep breath, trying to ignore the fact she was stood, alone, in a room with Cleopatra.

"What kind of doctor _is_ he?"

"A strange one. Actually I don't really know."

Cleo looked at the doors the Doctor had left wide open. "One who is a complete irritation, it seems."

Lizzie laughed – actually, properly laughed, and didn't just laugh out of fear of execution. Cleopatra was actually a rather nice woman.

"You should stand up to your friend more," Cleopatra declared.

"I've only just met him," Lizzie admitted.

"Lizzie? That was your name, was it not?"

"Yes – yes, my… my Queen."

"Even more reason to do it, then."

* * *

It was the dead of night in the palace, and Lizzie was wondering who the Doctor truly was, as they crept down the sandstone corridors, trying to remain as quiet as possible. On one hand, the man with the magic box seemed like an impossible time traveller. On the other hand, it all felt a bit… Scooby Doo.

"Do the monsters follow you around?" she eventually asked, determined to break the awkward silence. It was the only sound, other than their footsteps tapping gently against the floor.

They'd been mummy-hunting for a good half an hour, and had seen nothing. The Doctor walked ahead, the sonic screwdriver gently pulsating with light with each step they took, and he was seemingly in his element. An element he had missed, by the looks of the way his eyes lit up at every new corner and door. There was no logic to the way they searched the palace – they just followed the light pulses. They turned corners, and took flights of stairs, and went through all sorts of rooms they probably shouldn't have gone through.

"It's just… coincidence, I think," the Doctor admitted, as they turned onto a long, wide corridor with ornate tapestries draped along the walls. "Half the time I follow them."

There were several doors stationed along the corridor. One of them had a tall, barrel-chested guard stood outside. Lizzie accidentally made eye contact and awkwardly waved at him. The guard remained motionless and Lizzie knew this horrendous social encounter would haunt her for a good few days. Lizzie caught up with the Doctor, trying to forget the incident had ever happened.

"So… this is how it works. You go somewhere… and you fight evil and stuff?"

"Basically, yes. And I must admit, Lizzie, you've hit the jackpot on your first go. Ancient Egypt, Cleopatra, and mummies. Mummies stalking Cleopatra. That's lucky."

 _I feel humbled_. The weirdness was a bit too much for sarcasm. She was too internally excited, at having actually spoken to Cleopatra.

It got weirder, however.

The door at the far end of the corridor swung open with Indiana Jones style theatrics, and a shadow staggered through.

"Hello…," the Doctor murmured, flicking the sonic screwdriver away back into his pocket. "Who are you…"

As the shadow stumbled its way down the corridor towards them, and into the light of the burning orange torches, they both realised exactly what it was.

The mummy.

Whether it was the one stalking the Queen, or whether there were more of them, they were unsure. What they were looking at was a mummy.

It walked upright, except it was as if it were only walking for the first time, and it hadn't quite got to grips with how its legs functioned. Because of that, it took one step at a time, thinking between each as to what muscles had to move to move another. It walked in a constant, stop-start rhythm, one foot, then the other, one foot, then the other. Eventually it stopped, about ten metres away from where they stood. It was then that they could get a good look at it.

The mummy was tall. Tall-ish. Both legs were bandaged – except unlike the mummy Cleo had described, the bandages here were old and yellowed, and peeling off in several places. Wires and tubes poked through the fabric, running to other parts of the body, adding an air of artificiality to the creature. The body was similar, bound tight in antique, stained bandages, peeling off and torn and ripped. Again, wires and tubes ran from the torso to other parts of the body. Also connected to the part of the fabric was a panel – it looked like a partially severed iPhone, and buttons and switches and glowing little lights decorated the rest of it. The head was the most bizarre part – a hodgepodge of mummy and human and robot. Some of it was bandaged, binding the skin on the human bits tight. The visible skin was grey and dead – no blood had run through it in years. And then the robotics… the two eyes had been replaced with metal plates, and embedded in each of the plates was a cold, empty socket, staring out at them.

"Oh, Lizzie…," the Doctor sounded almost in awe. "You really have hit the jackpot on your first go."

His eyes were drawn to the top of the head. Two pieces of metal protruded from the side, and connected above the head – almost like handlebars.

"You recognise it?" she asked the Doctor.

He didn't respond. When she looked at him, he was grimacing, his face a picture of shock, and disgust, and…

Recognition.

"The Cybermen."

The word meant nothing to her, but the Doctor said it with a distinct force and distaste.

"You… you know what it is, though?"

"Oh yes," the Doctor didn't move from his spot, and told her to stop moving as well. The Cyberman-mummy remained perfectly still, staring at them. "The Cybermen are old friends of mine. I say friends. I mean…"

"Enemies?"

"Yes. But I say enemies, they're not… they're not malicious, far from it. They're evolution. They're humans. But they're advanced humans. Humanity mark 2, perhaps – when we get sick of our flesh bodies, and we decided we've had enough of pain and sickness, then… that's what we become."

Lizzie shivered, swallowing back bile, and stared at the creature staring at them, unable to comprehend that the thing opposite her had once been… the same as her. Except, she also could not bring herself to despise it too much, for she understood that that was where humanity would naturally evolve to. Regardless of that, the future, stood in front of her now, was sickening. But somehow it had changed, so much so that it looked completely different… but still uncannily human.

"You," the Doctor said. "Yes, I'm talking to you, Cyberman. What do you want here?"

"We…."

It spoke in a voice that made Lizzie cringe – as if an autotuned voice had gone horribly wrong, and the equipment vastly misused – the wrong words and sounds were emphasised, and when they came out the pitch was distorted.

"We….. we…."

"Go on," the Doctor encouraged mockingly, nothing but contempt in his voice. "Spit it out, now."

"The – the – the Cybermeeeeeee –"

"It's weak," the Doctor dared to approach a little closer, suitably reassured that the Cyberman was on the harmless side. Though looking at the way the Doctor looked at the Cyberman… harmless probably still meant 'pretty dangerous'.

"The Cybermen – crashed – upon this planet."

"Oh… interesting. It'd explain why you're so… patchwork…"

"Are they always like this, then?" Lizzie asked, looking at the almost makeshift man, and then looking away because of the unnerving familiarity.  
"Depends on their timeline. Some of them are far more roboticised than others. This lot – well, it's not only early in their timeline, but they're running low on resources as well, I should think," the Doctor turned back to the Cyberman. He didn't need to worry – the Cyberman was waiting for him. It was as if it couldn't be bothered to attack. Or as if it had something better to be concerned about. "What do you want with Cleopatra?"

"Your question is… irrelevant."

The Doctor gave a confused look. "No, I don't think so. Tell me."

The Cyberman didn't respond, and the Doctor looked almost fed up at his inability to embrace the Scooby-Doo chasing-aliens side of his travelling. He sighed, a kind of 'what's the point' sigh – sick of the monsters being terrible at being interrogated.

"They're so... depleted of everything," the Doctor took out the sonic screwdriver, giving the still-mostly-human creature the once over. "They can barely talk."

The Doctor already looked confused. Lizzie was pretty certain that wasn't meant to happen. He ran a hand through his short locks of hair, and stroked the little facial hair he had, and looked to one of the tapestries on the wall. It portrayed eight figures – Lizzie didn't recognise them, but they were the sort of Egyptian figures, that one often saw in art galleries.

"Heh," the Doctor gave a small laugh. _No_ , Lizzie realised. It wasn't a small laugh. She gave him a confused glance, and the Doctor winked at her, and then turned to the Cyberman. "Hmm. Perhaps my Egyptian mythology is better than your databanks."

Lizzie nudged him, and he turned to her. "Heh. Part of the Ogdoad, Egyptian God of eternity."

Lizzie was coming to realise that no matter how much the Doctor explained things, sometimes they still didn't make any sense. At all.

"Cybermen, or Cyberman, I don't know yet whether there are any more of you. I will, though. Oh, I will. See you in about… four-ish years? Give or take."

The Doctor turned on his heels, and Lizzie was stood awkwardly looking at the Cyberman. She shrugged her shoulders, and the Cyberman looked on at her emotionless. She turned to follow the Doctor.

* * *

The Doctor and Lizzie walked down the stone pier, back to the shore. It was well into the night now, and the hustle and bustle of the market was long gone now. Instead, the eerie city silence of the small hours had set in, and a thick, viscous darkness had settled over the city. Lizzie took her phone out of her pocket to switch the torch on, before putting it away again, still concerned it would screw up the entire space-time continuum or something.

"What was all that about?" Lizzie asked him, loitering behind slightly.

"That Cyberman, Lizzie. It was basically harmless. But it will be active, soon – believe me, it will be."

The Doctor ran his plan through his head. They were going to go, come back in about four years, and wait for the Cybermen to... do more stuff. It was the only way, to avoid the Cybermen doing anything stupid in advance.

"So _that's_ your plan," Lizzie observed.

"You don't even know what I was thinking," the Doctor exclaimed, while Lizzie found herself getting increasingly irritated by him.

"I do," Lizzie said. "You're thinking we're going to wait for the Cyberman to… do more stuff?"

"Okay, yes. I am."

He was thinking exactly that.

"Because it's stalking an ancient Egyptian Queen, and having met the Cybermen before… that's unusual."

Lizzie remembered the way the Cyberman had just watched her, but she couldn't help but wonder whether it would try and make a move against Cleopatra. Try and do to her what it had done to itself, perhaps?

"How does time work?"

It sounded less obscure and random in her head. The Doctor probably thought the same.

"It's like jenga."

 _Okaaay._ Even the word made her shiver at how awful she was at that game.

"You can play about with it," the Doctor continued. "You can… take bits out. Except, unlike jenga, unless you cheat like Mrs Thatcher, when it falls, the entire universe collapses."

"So…," Lizzie sat down on the wall, dangling her legs down over the beach below, the vertigo becoming suddenly nauseating. "Time is basically… one massive jenga."

"Exactly! This huge, complex tower, of so many different parts, all working together, all in harmony with each other. And you can move bits, and take bits out, and even add bits in…"

The Doctor's voice trailed off, but he looked up at her, as if he were helping her learn, slowly encouraging her. She continued for him.  
"But, of course, if you disturb it too much… then the whole thing topples."

"Exactly," the Doctor confirmed.

It had been bothering her for a while, and she was pleased that the Doctor had finally put her worries to rest. Though when she stepped out of the TARDIS, she was too concerned about doing something so small that could somehow result in her not being born. She didn't tell him, though. He'd probably just laugh at her. Especially if he'd done life drawing with Stalin.

 _Walk like an Egyptian.  
_  
And a familiar tambourine beat began to drift through the night. Lizzie blushed, and scrambled around trying to find her phone, which she'd put into one of her pockets but couldn't find it anywhere. Stupid ringtone…

"Sorry, sorry, sorry…"

The Doctor stood, watching her, trying not to laugh. "Didn't have you down as a fan of The Bangles."

"Me? Oh, erm, yeah. 80s music… kind of my thing. Didn't have you down as a fan of Cleopatra," Lizzie paused. "Comin' atcha. The band, I mean. The 90s R&B."

It was as if there was a moral obligation to do the "comin' atcha" bit. Lizzie never felt properly satisfied unless she'd said it.

"I'm not. Intergalactic Spotify is amazing, puts together all sorts of playlists I don't really care about."

Lizzie couldn't actually imagine him listening to music at all, when she thought about it. Most people, she could look at them, and tell exactly what they were into. The Doctor – she wasn't so sure. But one thing was for certain. Spotify did not just put together random playlists.

"Come on, Lizzie. We've got to go and meet Cleopatra."

Silence, as the Doctor began to walk, and Lizzie stood up to follow him. She had always felt her loyalties between academia and then the bright and vibrant world of fiction and music and dancing and art. She was well aware many found the same enjoyment in studying… but she'd never managed it. There had always been some niggling feeling in the back of her mind that as much as she studied, it couldn't teach her anymore about what was truly important. Her true retreat had always been into the worlds that she could just enjoy. The worlds that she didn't have to stress about.

"Comin' atcha," she whispered into the night.

* * *

 **44 BC** **  
**  
The journey to her throne felt as if it took forever. Perhaps it was the realm of eyes upon her, as slowly Queen Cleopatra walked down to the simple wooden seat at the far end of the room, with each step on the decorated rug taking twice as long. Servants and handmaidens and soldiers lined the pathway for her. All she knew was that the journey from Rome had been nothing in comparison to what she was enduring now.

Eventually she arrived, and turned to face her staff. They watched her in silence, and she couldn't stand thinking about what they must be thinking.  
"You will leave me."

The audience wavered. A brief moment of hesitation passed for all of them, and then eventually, they all turned and filed out of the door, one by one.  
Cleopatra was glad to have them gone. They were the last people she was ready to face. Although, in some way - after the events that had befallen in Rome, and the events that had occurred here, in Egypt, Cleopatra felt even more determined to rule than she had done before. To defend her kingdom. To protect it.

Then she looked up, and saw the lone man stood in line. He was in the same position as he had been before – except everyone surrounding him had gone.  
"Did you not here me, sir?"

The man didn't say anything.

"Leave me! Or I shall have you dead."

If there was one thing that the Queen could not abide, it was insolence.

"My Queen," the man began, stepping out in front of her.

She recognised him – but it took a few moments for who he really was to settle in her head. He was unforgettable.

"You…," she was aghast, unsure what she should say. The man slipped from the shadows and into the torchlight.

He looked no different to how he had appeared four years ago. As in –completely identical, right down to his clothing, and his hair – close copped curls, with a spattering of a beard, and a long coat. Scuffed brown boots, and a bag dangling by his hip. It was now that she noticed his attire was most unusual. His face was emotionless, his piercing blue eyes staring right into hers.

"You need to stay hidden," Cleo said immediately.

"Why?" the Doctor walked towards her.

"Because I put out an order to have you found and executed."

"Oh?"

"You said you'd find my stalker, and you disappeared. I do not appreciate being treated like that."

"And so you thought you'd behead me?" the Doctor leaned up close to her.

"I'll still behead you," she pushed him away. "Where is Lizzie?"

The Doctor was surprised that Cleopatra had remembered her. "Gone off exploring."

"Did you find my stalker?" Cleo asked suddenly. She was concerned. After all – she still saw the mummy watching her sometimes. During fleeting moments of sleep, when she was drifting in and out of consciousness, it would be stood in the far corner of the chamber, watching her from the strange dimension of slipping in and out of slumber. Eventually she would wake herself up – and it would be real. But within seconds, it would vanish again. Whenever she saw it, Cleo's mind always wandered… who was the Doctor who promised to find out who it was?

"Yes. I've got Lizzie working on it now," the Doctor looked nervously over his shoulder – it was something more of a nervous twitch than anything else. He was concerned for her, and it was not the most sensible thing to send her to do when he'd only just offered to take her with him.

"Who is it?"

"It's a Cyberman."

Cleo looked surprisingly unsurprised.

"You believe me?" the Doctor hadn't expected Cleopatra to be so easily swayed.

"Since meeting you, and since the absurdity of this… Cyberman, I think I'd believe anything. You must dine with me."

The Doctor gleefully accepted – another historical encounter he could add to his repertoire. He had secretly been rather smug when he'd told Lizzie he did life drawing with Stalin, and with great joy had watched as she'd tried to work out which one of them had been the model.

* * *

As Lizzie slunk through the underbelly of the palace, she had to do a bit of a reality check. People often round themselves strangely accepting of things, however unlikely they may have once seemed. There's never the 'oh my god' breakdown that most people expect. Lizzie wondered whether it was to do with the fact that the world in itself was such a strange place, that even weirder things didn't seem that weird.

She was, admittedly, wary, that the Doctor had sent her off to go and have a look around and see if she could find some Cybermen. She was truly being thrown in at the deep end… though she didn't mind. If anything, it was strangely liberating, being allowed to go and have a look around on her own.  
Before meeting a man with a time machine, she'd always found it very difficult to visualise history. It was as if she could only see it in the monochrome of photographs, and not picture the colour or the vibrancy or the life. For example, one could not taste the musty air from the depths of the palace. One could not smell the peculiar lingering stench of rot. One could not feel the sandstone bricks that had been so sturdily constructed to form an almighty structure. It was a stupid thing to think about anyway, because nobody had any visual record of ancient Egypt, apart from paintings. Though it didn't matter – because of all those limitations, picturing history was so difficult. Perhaps it explained why she felt so unnerved about walking there.

The freedom of walking alone wasn't to last. She stepped around a corner, and suddenly a child ran into her.

She couldn't have been much more than 10, 11 perhaps. Some servant to the Queen, perhaps. But when she looked at Lizzie, Lizzie saw nothing but terror in her eyes, and she opened her mouth to scream.

Lizzie put a finger to her lips and gave the girl a glare to shut her up. Then she felt guilty, and her face turned into a sympathetic smile. The girl instantly seemed at ease.

"What's your name?" Lizzie asked her. Lizzie loved children… it was something to do with all that potential they held. The ability to do something truly special, and the fact that you could be part of that.

"Nephthys," the girl whispered. Then she started to talk, about all sorts of things really quickly at a speed Lizzie could barely understand. "There's a monster. A… a… it's a dead man."

"Okay," Lizzie said, taking deep breaths, trying to get Nephthys to imitate her, in the hope it could calm her down. "I'm going to go and find out who it is. Stay here, okay?"

The girl seemed reluctant, and Lizzie realised that she'd feel too guilty leaving her behind.

"Stay close," Lizzie said, and she stood up, slowly easing her way around the corner to see what was down the corridor. Nephthys's hand curled into hers, and Lizzie squeezed it, trying to make her feel safe. They turned the corner together, and began to make their way together.

There was a painfully awkward silence.

"Do you like music?"

"Yes."  
Lizzie reached into her pocket, and took out her phone. So what if she caused the entirety of space and time to collapse? She went onto 'music', and selected The Bangles.

 _All the old paintings on the tombs._

 _They do the sand dance, don't you know._

 _If they move too quick (oh way oh)._

 _They're falling down like a domino._

Nephthys looked up at her, bemused at the alien tambourines and the foreign buzz of electric guitars, and the unfamiliar voice of Susanna Hoffs.

"Your songs are strange."

Lizzie spent most of her teenage years hearing exactly the same thing. Nephthys looked up at the ceiling in a moment of contemplation, as if this was the make-or-break moment.

What did an Egyptian truly think of The Bangles?

"I love it!" Nephthys sounded delighted, throwing her arms up in the air, proving once and for all that Egyptians don't actually 'walk like Egyptians'.

 _All the bazaar men by the Nile,_

 _They got the money on a bet._

 _Gold crocodiles (oh way oh)_

 _They snap their teeth on your cigarette._

"I don't understand the words…," Nephthys was trying to decipher the unfamiliar language – her face was one of someone completing a jigsaw puzzle, using trial and error to try and work out what meant what and what went where. Except with the jigsaw puzzle Nephthys was working on, the pieces were strange shapes and had abstract images showed nothing she had ever seen before. Then she glanced at Lizzie's phone, suddenly realising that the music wasn't being played from anyone – it was coming from the strange device in her hand.

"What's that?" Nephthys asked.

"It's…," Lizzie fumbled around for some lie that would make sense, but before she could think of anything, Nephthys' eyes widened.

"Are you a god?!" she exclaimed, her face the picture of surprised.

"No," Lizzie laughed. "I'm… I'm a traveller."

Technically it wasn't a lie.

"Where are you from?" Nephthys continued the interrogation.

"Somewhere… far away from here," Lizzie murmured, the thought of how impossibly distant Dunsworth felt making her woozy. It was so far away – in every way that could possibly be imagined.

"I'd like to go and see faraway places one day," Nephthys mused aloud. Lizzie listened to the way she said it – it was dreamy, as if what she was saying could only ever be words, and wouldn't take the form of anything more.

It reminded her of the way she used to dream of going places, but couldn't, because she was too scared.

 _And look at me now._

"Then… go for it."

Nephthys mumbled a series of uncertain sounds. "I don't know…"

"Even if it feels impossible… all sorts of things happen."

Nephthys tightened her grip on Lizzie's hand, as if she were grabbing on for reassurance. Beside her, the little girl relaxed a little.

It didn't last long – only seconds later a door, like those from some cliched ancient and forgotten tomb, slid upwards, scraping against the stone. A bandaged figure silently walked out – a Cyberman.

Before Lizzie could pull Nephthys into the nearby porch, Nephthys had pulled Lizzie, and they stood there, hoping that the shadows could conceal them for long enough.

Perhaps the Cyberman was just on routine patrol or something. It was not the one she'd seen four years ago – grey, dead hands were unbandaged, and the yellowing dressings that did stick to the body were peeling off in several places, revealing a patchwork of plastic and skin and bone and alloys, a disharmony of ancient and futuristic. The bandages on the face revealed a small slit for a mouth, and one eye remained human (ish – any light that once made the eye bright with living had long since been extinguished), while the other eye was a hellish, inky pit.

It walked right past them, and Lizzie held her breath in some desperate bid to make sure the Cyberman didn't notice them. She noticed that Nephthys did the same. And they waited like that, for what felt like hours, but was probably only seconds, as the Cyberman walked past them in its rhythmic stumble.  
The Cyber-mummy (a term Lizzie was growing quite affectionate towards) walked to the end of the corridor, and paused for a few seconds. Its head jolted in rotation from side to side – it seemed to be looking for someone. The terrible thought crossed her mind that it was probably, definitely her, but she tried to forget about it, out of fear that somehow it would be able to hear her thoughts, and find her.

When the Cyberman walked back, it did so quickly. And it turned, and went back the way it came.

Lizzie quickly ushered Nephthys out of their porchway, and through the sliding stone door the Cyberman had left through, before it shut, grinding to the floor with a prolonged shudder.

* * *

"Wine for my Queen?" the Doctor held out the flagon.

"You say that, but only as a matter of courtesy," Cleopatra observed, sitting opposite the Doctor.

Cleopatra's dining room was spacious – designed for large feasts with her generals or banquets with her Italian allies. The great length of oak, however, was only occupied by two people.

They sat at the centre, directly opposite each other, only a metre-and-a-half apart, perhaps. Closer than they had been so far. Cleopatra observed the man with a strange satisfaction – she liked him, and the way he spoke to her and the way he hadn't tiptoed around her for the sake of trying to please 'his Queen'. Instead, when they arrived in the dining room, the Doctor had spent a good deal of time running around the walls and admiring the artworks.  
"No wine?" the Doctor seemed surprise.

"Oh yes, I'll have the wine. But I am not your Queen. No – you come from far away."

The Doctor poured the bitter red, looking up at Cleo as he did so. "How do you know?"

"Firstly, you stride around my palace with a strange, magic… wand –"

The Doctor couldn't help but chuckle aloud at Cleo's unknowingness as to the origins of the sonic screwdriver.

"– and you and Lizzie wear such… abnormal clothes."

The Doctor sighed, pouring some wine for himself. It was an explanation that actually, he did not find himself giving too often. Most people didn't care. "Cleo… it's a very long explanation, one which I'm sure you don't need to be –"

Fury washed over her – Cleopatra could not abide with the petulance of the little man sat opposite her. "Doctor, I will not mindlessly accept everything you do. This is my empire, I worked hard to build it up as it is, and I will not be judged upon the entertainment or pleasure that I bring you. You must improve the way you speak to me."

The Doctor blushed, and spluttered a few words out, not quite sure what to say, before eventually he settled on something. "I don't think you would believe me."

"Have we not been over this several times?" Cleopatra was mocking, and scathing. Her tongue was almost as sharp as the sword of the executioner she'd made certain the Doctor had seen when they made their way to the dining room.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," the Doctor backtracked – and not because he was scared of the executioner's sword. Cleo was right – she did not deserve to be spoken to in such a way. "Lizzie and I… we're time travellers."

Cleo took a sip from her wine, and glanced at the ceramic mug to make sure she hadn't already become intoxicated. No – the glass was full. Perhaps finally the Doctor had found something to tell her that would truly make her question her wellbeing.

"Look me in the eye," Cleopatra leaned away from the Doctor. "Look me in the eye and tell me that this is real."

"Don't you believe me?" the Doctor retorted straight away, not sounding remotely surprised.

"You're a liar at heart. The one thing reaffirming my faith in you is that Lizzie is genuine."

The Doctor smiled, thinking of his new companion, and how he couldn't imagine her being able to lie to anybody. "I suppose she is quite… believable."  
"You barely know her," Cleo could read the Doctor like a book.

"You can't read me like a book," the Doctor could read Cleo like a book. "I could tell you all sorts of lies and you wouldn't know what was fact and what was fiction."

"I think I could. And I think you could with me," Cleopatra smirked at the Doctor's almost-arrogance. He was so used to being unfathomable, that for once, all it took was for someone to believe him, and instantly he became understandable. "Though you definitely cannot with your companion."

"Oh? And why's that?" The Doctor refused to believe that Cleo, who had only met Lizzie once, and had only had a short conversation with her, would be able to read her better than he could.

"She is one of the most observant women I have set eyes upon. She has already read you thrice over, Doctor, and believe me, if she wanted to lie to you, she could do it with ease. But I know she is being truthful here. I could see the awe in her eyes as she admired the city from the balcony. No – I am certain I am not going mad. I wanted to see how you would react."

A silence descended upon them, as Cleopatra smugly drank her wine, the taste of having argued with the Doctor and won being sickly sweet.

"If you're a time traveller, why are you here?"

Cleopatra assumed that the Doctor and Lizzie were from some kind of future. She had always wanted her legacy to be that of a good Queen – though she couldn't bring herself to ask the Doctor what people truly thought of her.

"You're… so _interesting_ –," the Doctor began, before Cleopatra quickly shut him up.

"I am not some kind of specimen," she declared, determined to put the Doctor to rights, and sick of the way he spoke of her.

"No, I don't mean like that –," the Doctor paused, observing the Queen's mischievous grin. "– are you just mucking around?"

"No, I am making sure you see your self-righteous, sanctimonious self for who you truly are."

For the first time in their conversation, the Doctor bothered to stop and think about what he was saying, putting thought and effort into the words, in the knowledge that they were going to make an impact on somebody.

"You are one of the most fascinating historical figures in… ever. Fact or fiction, who knows – _nobody_ _knows_ about you."

Cleo wished she hadn't heard him say that, taking a quick, anxious swig of her wine, and hoping that it didn't mean what she thought. She didn't build her empire to be remembered as just someone – she built up her empire to be remembered for someone good.

"Nobody remembers me?" Cleo eventually questioned him. She still wasn't sure whether she wanted to know, and her mind was constantly changing. She decided she had to.

"Oh, Cleo – they remember you –"

"Then," the first sounds of concern crept into Cleo's voice. "What do you mean? Do they remember me well? Oh, Doctor, please – tell me they remember me well."

The Doctor paused – now it wasn't as if he were thinking of generic words he was going to have to say for the first time. Now he was thinking of important words.

"You're remembered as a story, Cleo. People know you for… so many things. And that's why we're here. Because we wanted to know who's behind the story."

Cleo wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. There was something strangely exciting about it – but what she wanted more than anything else was –

"You must tell people," Cleo declared. A look of shock flew across the Doctor's face, his features suggesting that he wanted to do everything he could to stop the last few minutes of conversation from happening. "Tell people the truth. Let me be a story, but let me be a true story. Teach people about me."  
The Doctor looked at her sorrowfully, and her face fell. She knew what he was going to say.

"I can't."

"You have a time machine, stupid man! Use it for good! Teach as many people as you can. You can't let people live lies."

The Doctor wanted to lie to her, he wanted to say that he would, just so that she wouldn't be disappointed. But he couldn't bring himself to do it after everything she'd said to him. There would be some way of explaining it, perhaps – though it didn't seem as if what he would say, any scientific technobabble, would be able to make Queen Cleopatra understand.

"Time travel doesn't work like that," was all he could finally muster. Cleopatra glared at him, as if she were asking him what kind of terrible excuse it was.  
"Then what's the point?"

The Doctor shrugged. Even after all this time, he still didn't really know.

* * *

Just as the Cybermen had patched up the natural with the artificial, they had done the same to the lower levels of Cleopatra's palace, attaching electric lights to the ancient sandstone. Just as there was a disharmony between the technological advances strapped onto the Cybermen, it was strange looking at sleek, white bulbs attached to the ceilings, with neat cables carefully managed, attached to the walls. The Cybermen were clearly not a messy people.

Nephthys, meanwhile, looked around in awe at the electronics, as they slowly made their way downwards – it seemed as if the narrow corridor was leading somewhere below. It was always below, wasn't it? The people up to no good always seemed to hide out in some basement or cellar. Lizzie and Nephthys always made sure they were far enough behind the Cyberman, so it couldn't suddenly turn and spot them. The tight walkway twisted and turned, giving them plenty of space to duck out of sight.

They walked as silently as they could, trying to walk almost as quietly as the slapping of bandaged feet on the floor, and trying to stop themselves from breathing. In the bright, clinical white lights in the belly of the palace, there was nothing but quiet, and Lizzie could hear that the Cybermen did not breath.

It felt as if the intestinal corridor went on forever, worming and burrowing its way through the sand and the Earth. The clean, white lights were equally spaced along the ceiling, always exactly perfect – there was no distinction as to whether this was the start or the end of the catacomb, apart from the sounds of the night and the pyramid's nightlife growing ever-distant.

Then the corridor opened out into a wider room. It looked as if it had been dug out by the Cybermen, with metallic beams propping up the ceiling and the walls. A circular table, like a gigantic, 3D CD, had been constructed in the centre of the chamber, with the white light of a screen bursting from the top, and placed along the metal beams were various screens, with keyboards set up beneath them. From this presumed base of operations, a series of tunnels led off – four in total, in several different directions. The most significant was a slightly larger doorway, with artificial plastic flaps dangling down, almost like something from an abattoir, a place of industrial slaughter.

Two Cybermen stood in front of the disc-shaped computer, crusty, bandaged fingers dragging through various different records and instruments. They were not identical, instead they were like crazy-paving, each built with a menagerie of human and artificial parts. When they spoke, their voices were of different pitches, like human voices – but both were recognisable with that chilling, broken-autotuned twang.

"Conversion of the deceased will begin. Prepare the body."

"The body is in the chamber. Purification is in process."

"I will operate."

The two Cybermen left their computer, and strode through the plastic sheeting, giving no notice to it as it brushed over their handlebar heads.

Lizzie poked her head into the chamber, and surprised herself with her willingness to throw herself into danger.

"I think it's okay," she slipped around into the chamber, sticking close to the wall. Nephthys followed her out, but unlike Lizzie, she walked straight to the computer in the middle.

"Are these people travellers as well?" Nephthys gave the text on the table a funny glance, unable to decipher the unknown language it was written in.

"Yeah… I think so."

Nephthys walked over to the plastic sheeting, and looked at it reluctantly. Lizzie examined it, if for no reason but to delay time and think of her next move.  
She held it open for Nephthys and they crept quietly through, loitering in a convenient gap in the wall, a gap containing a generator. If they both craned their heads out, they could see a much larger room. Except, unlike the previous one, it was almost entirely original, constructed of solid blocks of sand, with beautiful paintings and etchings of Gods on the walls. The biggest artwork sat alone on one of the walls – it was a person, with a human body, and a jackal for a head. A crook was gripped tightly in its hands. In the centre, was a big slab – and on top of the slab, was a body.

The one difference was the medical trolley which waited beside the slab, a series of scalpels and forceps lined neatly on top. A second medical trolley was on the other side, on top of which stood several painted wood jars, decorated in ornate Egyptian artwork, and with animal shapes carved eloquently into the top. A flashback to her school days, and Lizzie remembered visiting the Ashmolean in Oxford, and seeing canopic jars as one of the exhibits.

A cold, naked body was splayed out on the slab, with only a towel protecting its modesty. A third Cyberman joined the other two, and all three of them peeled purple, latex gloves onto their already bandaged hands, and strapped surgical masks onto their faces. They looked so unusual – Egyptian corpses donning modern medical equipment.

"Beginning conversion."

The Cyberman took a scalpel and set to work.

Again, another school flashback, and Lizzie remembered learning about mummification. Of course, it hadn't seemed quite as graphic when she was ten.

Then she remembered Nephthys, and thought that she should probably stop her from watching – but they were both glued to the scenes, as if they were having a cosy night in watching a warped, sick medical drama.

The Cybermen worked logically, methodically, and practically. Nothing was said, apart from a few uttered commands here and there. The process went, as it presumably had several times before. The Cybermen did not flinch at the sight of blood, or at organs or muscles or tissue, of which there was lots. Soon the purple gloves were bathed in blood.

All that happened then was the worst thing that could have happened.

"My…"

It was speaking. The body was alive.

Except, when it spoke, it no longer spoke as if it were human – the electronics in the voicebox had been implemented, and so it spoke as the others did – in a computerised buzz, still retaining a glimpse of its human history, but nothing more – everything was lost to the wrong intonation and emphasis on the words. And on top of the artificiality, when it spoke, the gurgle of blood and flehm in the throat was audible.

"My… name…. is…."

The Cybermen did not waver. They kept working.

"Where… is… my… daughter."

Lizzie had to look away, turning to the dark depths of the generator behind her. Nephthys couldn't look away.

"I… want…. my… daughter."

She wanted to be sick – she could feel the vomit and bile rising up to the top of her throat.

"I… want…."

All that could be heard then was the sound of a cold, metallic crying, and a hollow sniffling, as the last reaches of emotion in the man died. Lizzie looked left and right, to make sure nobody could see her, and then she left the little porch, making her way back into the original chamber.

"Are you alright?" Nephthys had followed her out. Lizzie suddenly realised she was crying, when she felt a salty tear merge with her saliva.

"Yeah… yeah, I'm fine," then she looked at the little girl, who was trying her best not to seem disturbed or upset. Lizzie could see that inside, she was crumbling.

As soon as she held out her arms, Nephthys ran into them, and Lizzie held her tight, making sure that the girl felt safe and protected. She wanted to tell her that everything was going to be alright, but although she held Nephthys close to her, she hadn't felt as alone as this while being on board the TARDIS. She had no idea what to do – no idea what to say that could make things any better – all while the stupid Doctor she'd just met was swanning around upstairs with Cleopatra. If he was here, she'd punch him. Actually, she'd just get a little bit irritable. She looked at Nephthys again. No, she'd punch him.

"You're going to be safe," Lizzie knelt down in front of Nephthys, hoping that it was true. As she felt lonelier than ever before, abandoned in some tomb beneath some palace in 44 BC, she had no idea if it was or not. "Trust me, okay. I… know someone. And he's going to help."

She really hoped he was going to, at least.

Lizzie reached for her phone, and called the Doctor.

* * *

"You are the most selfish man I have ever met. And believe me, I've met many selfish men."

The Doctor found himself fumbling around for words to try and justify what he was trying to say, but there weren't any. The idea of their being laws of time was a stupid one. Do not interfere, do not topple the great Jenga tower of time. And yet, he found himself having to abide by them.

"I'm sorry," was all he could think of to say.

"You could use a time machine for so much good – and yet, you don't."

"Life isn't fair."

Again, a meaningless cliché – but it was all that he could find.

"That doesn't mean you shouldn't try!"

Her voice was raised, and she slammed the wine cup down on the table, hard enough to make the plates and cutlery rattle against the wood. A silence fell, and the two of them looked awkwardly around the room, refusing to make eye contact.

"I'm sorry," she said, curtly. "I'm sure that no matter how much I disagree, you are bound by laws. Though there is nothing wrong with me disagreeing with them. And I do."

 _I can tell_ , thought the Doctor, even though he agreed with her.

"I have walked many places. I've seen… so many things, so many stories. And I can't tell anybody. But sometimes I can – and maybe one person, or two people, will get to share it with me. That's the best I can do… I just have to try and concentrate on the fact that at least somebody knows."

After the Doctor opened his heart to her, another awkward silence followed. They could argue, but it seemed that when it came to talking, they weren't very good at it. Another reason that the Doctor and Cleo were alike – their reluctance to divulge information.

Then, the Doctor's satchel began to peculiarly vibrate. The Doctor looked around sheepishly, and pulled out his phone. Cleo eyed it uncertainly, and the Doctor explained to her what it was. Facebook had left her in an even greater state of confusion than time travel had.

"Lizzie?"

"Doctor… it's me."

"Lizzie, have you found anything?"

"Yes… yeah, we have."

He detected a hint of reluctance in her voice – nothing much, but there was something there. "Are you alright?"

"Hmm, me? Yeah, fine," she lied. "The Cybermen are here and… they're turning dead people into Cybermen."

"Oh, clever," the Doctor noted his excessive fascination. "Give me five minutes."

The Doctor hung up the phone, slipping it into his satchel.

"Cleo! It seems you've got an army of vicious cyborgs living beneath your palace."

* * *

As Lizzie flipped her phone shut, she saw Nephthys staring at the door with the plastic flaps, paralysed with fear. One of the Cybermen was there, staring at her. It slowly reached up an arm, and detached its surgical mask, and peeled off its purple, surgical gloves.

"You are intruders," its voice whirred and buzzed and droned. "You will not move."

Lizzie, aware that she was being interrogated, realised that she should probably think of some intelligent and witty retort. She didn't, and floundered, until Nephthys stepped in.

"What are you doing?" she demanded, her voice remarkably steely for a 10-year-old.

"The dead will be… converted."

"Cool," Lizzie said, suddenly realising that she had one threat up her sleeve. She was really, really hoping it worked. And she was also… eerily intrigued. "I'm guessing you guys have databanks or something? Like, they usually do in the books and stuff."

"We have databanks."

"Then search up 'The Doctor'."

Lizzie found herself doing rather well at sounding threatening.

The Cyberman stood, as if it were searching in some prosthetic, implanted search engine.

"The Doctor is irrelevant."

Then, a familiar voice came from the stairway into the tomb.

"And why's that?"

A huge wave of relief washed over Lizzie, and she turned, to see the Doctor stood there, looking like the archetypal hero, with his satchel over his shoulders, and the sonic screwdriver clasped in his hand.

"Hello Cybermen. Guess who?"

"The Doctor is here," three Cybermen emerged from the darkened tunnels leading to the central hub.

"Why so concerned, Cybermen? What can I do to hurt you?"

Five Cybermen had gathered, and they stood, watching the three of them blankly.

"Because you…," the Doctor gestured at the dilapidated control room around them, and at the ruined state of the Cybermen. "You're nothing."#

"I wouldn't call turning the recently deceased into cyborgs 'nothing'…" Lizzie doubted that she'd ever be able to forget the synthesised pleas of the dying man on the operating slab.

"But Lizzie, don't you see? In the grand scheme of things!" the Doctor didn't take his eyes off the Cybermen.

"I still think that's… that's pretty grand."

The Doctor turned to face her, his face ashamed. "Yes. Sorry." He gave Cleopatra an apologetic look as well, as she joined them in the room behind the Doctor.

Cleopatra took in the Cybermen – the creatures that had been watching her, all of her life. "Who are you? Am I addressing the followers of Anubis? Who _are_ you?"

At that moment, the Cybermen limply raised their palms to their chests, a sort of gesture to show… respect? Service? It was as if the Cybermen were worshipping their Queen, as if they were just her courtiers.

"You address me as your Queen?" Cleopatra asked, as if that had made her willing to hear what the Cybermen had to say.

"Our… Queen…," the Cybermen spoke in a disharmonic unison. Cleopatra looked at the Doctor, as if she were looking for answers.

"Then, as your ruler, I command you to leave."

At that moment, everyone in the chamber looked around to the Doctor, as he gasped aloud, "I'm stupid."

"Doctor, be quiet," Cleopatra ordered her.

"Cleo, please –"

She gave him a look as if that promise of the executioner's sword were about to come to fruition. However, she let him speak.

"Walk away. Trust me, just do it, just walk away. The Cybermen don't want you at the moment."

Cleopatra opened her mouth to protest, but then glanced over at the Cybermen, and how they stood watching her. They were not planning on doing anything.

"Lizzie, would you mind going to do the door? And Nephthys."

Lizzie and Nephthys did as they were told, and eventually Cleo followed.

"Cybermen!" the Doctor addressed them. "We'll be back."

* * *

The TARDIS was parked behind a curtain in Cleopatra's throne room, and the four of them were gathered around it.

"It's always the significant moments in your life," the Doctor wittered on, as he shoved the TARDIS doors open and switched on the lights (rather quaintly operated by a crude 21st century light switch). "When you became Queen, when your first child was born, when Caesar was assassinated."

Lizzie watched as Nephthys nervously stepped up to the doors. The inside of the TARDIS was obscured in shadows.

"What do they want with me?" Cleopatra asked, standing at a resolute distance away from the TARDIS.

"Not a clue yet."

"And this is your… ship?" Nephthys asked, placing a hand on the wooden doorframe.

"Yes," Lizzie confirmed calmly, while on the inside she was secretly desperate for Nephthys to step inside and see the truth.

Nephthys tentatively stepped inside.

Lizzie inelegantly stumbled past Nephthys, just to get a glimpse of her wide eyes as she took in the true magnificence of the TARDIS, as the bright irises danced all in one second, trying to understand about a million things that didn't make any sense. The time rotor pumped up and down, and that soothing, wheezing and groaning sound echoed. She understood why the Doctor had so joyously watched when she'd first set foot inside the TARDIS.

"Cleo," the Doctor walked up to the Queen. "You'll see us again. Once more."

"How can you know this?" Cleo's voice shook, more so than it had ever done before. She could not stay here, not with these… creatures living beneath her palace.

"Because I think I know what's happening. Roughly…"

"Then tell me!" Cleo protested.

"I can't, the laws of time –"

"Your laws of time are wrong."

"And they've hurt me enough."

Cleopatra was quiet, but the Doctor had nothing else to offer. So she continued. "They will hurt you even more."

The Doctor stepped up even closer to her, close to the Queen he had watched grow. "Stay strong, Cleo. Please – you must."

"I – I cannot stay here –"

"The Cybermen won't hurt you, don't worry."

Cleopatra glared at him, and then turned away. "I look forward to the day you meet your maker."

The Doctor walked into the TARDIS, and shut the doors behind him.

"How does it work?" Nephthys gazed in wonder at the machinery. Lizzie had no idea, and she was fairly certain that the Doctor didn't know much either.  
 _Magic_ , Lizzie smiled to herself, as the TARDIS flew away. It always made her so happy, and so elated, as all the laws of logic were defied.

But then the Doctor turned and looked at them both, a solemn look on his face.

"Where we're going next… it won't be pleasant," he admitted. Neither Lizzie or Nephthys said anything – but they looked at him, waiting for him to continue.

"What's the second most significant event in your life after your birth?" the Doctor hinted, as if he didn't want to say it out loud.

Nephthys still hadn't realised, and she turned to Lizzie.

"Your death," Lizzie said, her voice cracking as she said it.

* * *

From the balcony of Cleopatra's bedchamber, there was chaos in the city below. Great wooden vessels, teeming with soldiers, had docked at the harbour, and their crew marched out into the great city of Alexandra.

"The night Octavian captures Alexandria," the Doctor grimaced, looking at the scenes below. "The Queen has tried every last attempt she can to try and save herself. Even tried to seduce him. In about five minutes – she will be dead."

Through the thin, netted curtains, they would see the Cyberman, stood in the corner. As expected, it was waiting at the final event of Cleopatra's life. For what, they still didn't know. Maybe they never would. Nobody inside the chamber, Cleopatra nor her attendants, seemed to have noticed it. Their attentions were occupied by other, more important problems.

"What do we do?" Lizzie asked. She hadn't been here before – did they go in? Did they intervene?

"We wait," the Doctor was blunt. "We know the Cyberman is here. We have all the pieces of the puzzle – we just need to put them together."

Lizzie looked at the Queen, lying in her bed, breathing thin, rasping breaths. Sweat matted her brow, and her skin a sickly colour.

"We can't just wait."

"That's all we can do. Cleopatra dies here, _that's_ what happens. It's already happened – she'll be dead soon."

Lizzie ignored him, pushing the thin shutters separating the balcony and the bedchamber.

Cleopatra looked up, and there was a shadowed figure, standing in the torchlight. Behind the person was the light from the balcony, and all Cleo could see was her billowing clothes, and hair blustering in the forceful night gales. It was a woman, she'd realised – perhaps an angel of some kind. That's what she looked like, her dark outline against the unearthly light.

When Lizzie stepped into the room, Cleo sat up. She dismissed her attendants.

"Just because she's gonna die," Lizzie turned to the Doctor, as he walked in quietly behind her. "Doesn't mean we can't make a difference."

Lizzie took a seat beside Cleo's bed, and took the Queen's hand in hers, squeezing it tightly.

"Li – Lizzie," Cleopatra wheezed. The poison had settled in. It wouldn't be long now – she wouldn't have to suffer anymore.

"Hello, my Queen."

"You… you don't look… look any different."

" _Magic_ ," Lizzie whispered, and suddenly she realised she was crying.

"I don't believe in magic…," Cleo managed a smile, and Lizzie couldn't help but grin. That was okay, though – Lizzie knew that you didn't need magic in stories.

Perhaps stories were magic in themselves.

"Thank you for coming… I didn't want to die alone."

"It's okay. You won't be alone again."

Lizzie felt Cleo take one, final breath. It waited inside her for a while, as if holding onto the way she lived, Cleo was trying to grab onto life, just for a little bit longer.

Her hand slipped away from Lizzie's, and bounced lifelessly down by the side of the bed.

Lizzie sniffled, and wiped the tears away from her eyes. She didn't want the Doctor to see her crying.

"She fought the establishment."

Lizzie suddenly realised the Doctor was saying something.

"Every single day of her life, she fought for what she believed was right. Cleopatra showed everyone who she was, and she would not change for anyone. She was a good mother, and a good leader. She died for it all, as well."

Lizzie was scared that nobody would ever know that. She knew the stories, she'd seen the films. More than anything, she wanted that to change.

"When I grow up," Nephthys was stood in the doorway. Lizzie had noticed her there earlier. "When I grow up, I want to be like her."

* * *

"I suppose that we'll never know what the Cybermen were doing here," the Doctor watched soldiers file into Cleopatra's palace, staring intently as they moved with a confident swagger – they knew victory was theirs. Antony was dead. The Queen was dead.

Lizzie sat glumly beside Nephthys on the wall, looking at the ocean below them. It seemed blacker than it had done when Lizzie had watched it before, years ago now. Was it years ago, or days? It was going to take her a while to adjust to the whole concept of time being completely changed beneath her feet.

The soldiers weren't taking any notice of them. They didn't really seem to care for anything apart from their orders and the fact victory was theirs. A strange chill sat in the air – nothing unusual for the night, but for some reason it felt even more bitter and eerie than the night air usually did.

"It's kind of… sad," Lizzie mumbled, originally intending it to sound a little bit deeper than it came out. "Kind of spooky as well… being here as a Queen is toppled."

Lizzie tried to make herself seem as if she were okay (because she wasn't really). She'd just watched someone die. And she didn't care what the Doctor went on about time or whatever – Lizzie had done something good.

Nephthys nodded, and Lizzie looked at her sadly – a girl who had perhaps seen more than she should ever had to have seen. The Doctor didn't say anything – instead he watched the events at the palace, his eyes not moving from the scene.

"She was so powerful. So… strong," Lizzie murmured, and then stopped, because nobody seemed to care.

The Doctor bristled, and then she definitely shut up.

But her murmuring was more because she was putting extra effort into forming an idea in her mind, putting the puzzle pieces together, and trying to formulate everything they'd learned.

 _Everything we've learned._

"What if the Cybermen were studying Cleo?"

The waves continued to buffet against the rocky walls, splashing gently against the molluscs and the seaweed and the algae. The muffled shouts of commands and orders echoed in the distance.

 _Clearly not_.

It made sense, didn't it? She was a powerful ruler. If Lizzie were a Queen, she'd certainly be taking notes.

"That's it!" the Doctor yelled, vigorously waving his arms, and catching the attention of a few soldiers laughed deep, drunken laughs. Nephthys was beginning to realise as well, and a broad grin spread across her face. The Doctor ran over the paving slabs and pulled Lizzie into a hug. "You're a genius!"  
He broke off the hug, and began a strange sort of run towards the palace.

Lizzie hadn't moved since the Doctor's little outburst and stood trying to absorb what had actually happened. Nephthys poked her, and Lizzie looked down at the little girl.

"Your friend is a bit…"

"Yeah…"

Lizzie hesitated.

"I, erm, don't know. I've been with him, what, two days? And I've been trapped beneath a pyramid… the dead were walking, and Cleopatra drank Earl Grey with him."

 _As the Doctor darted through the palace gates, the soldiers didn't even try and stop him – they just glanced around in sheer confusion, doing rubbish-soldiering, and let the Doctor pass, as he rushed through the palace._

 _Lizzie had worked it out – and he was so happy he had taken her with him, because he would be completely useless without her. Before the Doctor left, he only had one more thing to do._

 _He had to let the Cybermen know._

 _Well – and then there was another thing as well, but that could come later._

 _Gradually he zipped down to the lower levels, into the corridors that wormed their way around the basements and cellars and larders and dungeons of the palace that had once belonged to Cleopatra. He knew exactly where he was going – he was pretty certain he'd memorised it before._

"Who is he?" Nephthys eventually asked her, as they sat and looked out the busy port, over towards the setting sun, and the stars rising in its place. It looked almost like an astronomical filter over the sunset – over a harbour with wooden sailing boats and cargo ships and privateers and travellers from distant lands, carrying exotic spices and rare technologies and old furniture, and all that other stuff that's often handled in miscellaneous harbours. It was life, captured in one moment, with all those people, men, women and children, and the dogs and cats, right down to the mice scuttling about between crates and ceramic jars and china tea sets, each being able to taste the salty aroma of the ocean on their tongue, an aroma so strong it crept to the back of the lungs.

Lizzie shrugged. She didn't really know.

"He's the Doctor."

She knew some things, though. She knew a bit.

"I know, for sure, that the Doctor won't let children cry."

 _The Doctor quickened his pace – he didn't have long. But he remembered Nephthys, the little girl from earlier, who had been so terrified of the Cybermen, and of what the Cybermen had done. He ran. Suddenly the ground violently shook, and then ricocheted from its shaking, sending the Doctor tumbling forwards. Plumes of dust exploded from the ceiling, giving him a dusting of sand and gravel. He took a breath as he threw himself forward onto his feet, letting the filth fill his throat._

 _It was happening now._

 _He saw the door ahead of him – the one that led deep down to the Cybermen's lair._

"And... I think the Doctor will go to impossible lengths. Maybe even too much, sometimes."

 _As the Doctor reached the sliding door, it had descended, slamming into the stone. He fumbled around in his satchel and pulled out the sonic screwdriver, thrashing the button over and over, desperate for the door to open._

 _"Deadlock seal," he spat dust out of his mouth._

 _He knelt down, grabbing the stone of the door beneath his fingers, and pulled upwards, as hard as he could. It was a stone slab, he told himself – of course it wasn't going to open. But he tried it again, feeling the nails tear away from his skin. It was agony within his fingertips, but he wouldn't give up._

 _He couldn't._

 _It shifted, just a little – it shifted enough for him to get more appendages under. The Doctor gripped, and pushed against the floor. The stone scraped against the ceiling, just a bit more, and moved enough for him to slip his fingers through the Earth and get underneath the door._

 _When he lifted with his arms, the agony from his fingertips burst up to his shoulders and upper arms. Tears filled his eyes, and he pushed up, one final time._

 _The door opened, leaving the passageway to the depths of the castle open._

"But one thing is for sure… he'll always try, if it's something he believes in."

Lizzie searched for anything else she knew about the Doctor. But that was all. Other than the obvious stuff, of course.

"He's got a wife. But he's still sad – I can see it. I like to believe I can see right through him… but I don't know," she looked at the palace – she was on edge. Even though the Doctor seemed to know what was going on, he was pretty good at getting into all sorts of scrapes.

"Perhaps," she continued. "Half the time he doesn't know himself. A lot of the time, that's what he's trying to do."

 _The labyrinthine passage spiralled on, and on, and on. As the Doctor ran, the clinical, white lights above him were flickering on and off, and twice he was showered in sparks from the burning electrics. Along with the fiery rain, a deluge of dust and sand and earth was thrashing down from the ceiling. It wouldn't be long before the Cybermen were leaving, and so he was hurling himself downwards, feeling the warm ground scratch against his skin._

 _Eventually, he reached the bottom, to the chamber with the circular computer – six Cybermen stood around it, all hybrids of bandages and buttons, and wires and skin and metal, all probably with livers in canopic jars, and tissue that had been yanked out with crude, steel hooks. One of them turned to him._  
 _"It is the Doctor," it sang, in its tuneless, uncanny voice._

 _"I know what you were doing," he said, his voice hoarse, as he gasped for air that had been absorbed by the falling ceiling of the palace's corridors._  
 _The Cybermen stared at him blankly. "It is irrelevant. We have completed our mission."_

 _"Li – Lizzie worked it out, she's very clever – cleverer than you are, for sure. Cleverer than me, absolutely. You were studying her."_

 _Again, the Cybermen didn't waver. Three of them turned back to the computer, as their spaceship began to launch. It wouldn't be long before the ground above them collapsed in on itself, and a huge metal hulk erupted from the sand._

 _"You knew how she was such a powerful Queen, and you admired her, and the way she built such an effective empire. So you came here to learn from her!"_

 _"Correct."_

 _The Doctor stared at them all, and the Cybermen stared back, awkwardly. "Erm, yes. That's it, really. Bye for now."_

 _He turned and ran back up the way he came – in about a minute and a half, the Cybermen would leave Earth's atmosphere, and would journey off into space, to whatever scheme they had concocted next._

 _And if they were going to hurt anyone? Well – he would be there._

 _The ceiling was falling down around him, the downpour of bricks and mortar turning into a tsunami. Eventually, he slogged through the sand, and came out onto the corridor beyond the sliding door. The corridor behind him exploded, throwing him forwards, as a fireball blew up behind him._

 _He smacked against the stone bricks, as a cloud of sparks burst and crackled above his head, singeing the top of his hair and his beard. He touched it mournfully._

"And I think," Lizzie said, acknowledging the last thing that she knew about the Doctor. "That probably, a lot of the time, he needs more help than he admits. Just a minute – I'll be back."

As Lizzie ran through the gates of the palace, the guards looked around in confusion, as some kind of earthquake was violently shaking the palace back and forth, sending horses and camels wild, and sending bricks and slabs slipping down from the roofs and the turrets. She could roughly remember the way down to the Cybermen's dungeon – she took a few sets of stairs downwards, knowing that wherever the Doctor was, he'd probably be there.

As she neared the basement, the tremors grew even more forceful – Lizzie was sure that she was on the right track.

Eventually, she arrived at the corridor with the porch she'd hidden in with Nephthys, and the sliding door leading to the Cybermen. The Doctor was ahead of her, trudging his way over some kind of huge, sandstone breezeblock.

When he looked up and saw her, he breathed a huge sigh of relief.

"Come on!" she reached forward, and grabbed his hand, pulling him through the rubble. The dust and sand had formed a permanent cloud, omnipresent in the air, drawing tears from their eyes, and forcing them to cough dry, hacking coughs. The Doctor, mid-cough, reached towards her hand, and grabbed it, holding on as tight as he could. Lizzie tugged him forwards, and he stumbled into her.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry!" she watched as he attempted to regain balance. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, yes, I'm fine! Come on, let's get out of here…"

As the Doctor thought about what he'd been thinking before, he realised that he'd been wrong. If the Cybermen were going to hurt anyone again, it wouldn't be him waiting for them.

It would be the Doctor and Lizzie Darwin.

He had to concentrate again, as he realised Lizzie was having to pull him up a narrow set of steps.

* * *

The Doctor tentatively poked at the burned patch of his beard, cremated in the launching of the Cybermen's spaceship.

The Doctor and Lizzie had eventually managed to escape the palace, albeit blanketed in debris, and they had come face to face with a Nephthys who giggled at how messy they looked. Five seconds after they escaped, the sound of a million aircraft engines at once deafened the three of them, and all the soldiers stood in complete confusion and bemusement.

All of them watched as a huge, spinning lump of metal, almost as patchwork as the people who operated it, tore from the ground like someone uprooting a tree, and jetted off into the stars above.

The sun was nearly set, now.

Surprisingly, most of the palace was still standing – clearly when the Cybermen had crashed, they had made sure that they'd picked a sensible crash site, upon which nothing had been built since.

"A few thousand years from now," the Doctor pointed at the sea. "A great tsunami will come and destroy the rest of this palace, and the lighthouse."

Nephthys danced a funny little dance as she realised what the Doctor was saying. "The Cybermen! They'll come back and destroy it."

"Nephthys," Lizzie turned to the little Egyptian girl suddenly. "You should write all this down. As a story."

The Doctor looked at her hesitantly, as if he should say something. He decided not to.

"About the Cybermen?"

"Yeah."

Nephthys nodded, and then hugged Lizzie. "Thank you," she whispered, before breaking away, and giving the Doctor an awkward little wave. Then she scampered off into the night, with a whole wealth of adventures to write down.

Lizzie looked over at the chaotic palace, at the swathes of people dashing around, trying to make sense as to what had happened. The same was happening in the port – the humdrum conversations of goods transportation and the fall of a monarch had instead been replaced by why a great big thing just flew out of the ground and into the sky. She was sure that the Doctor had said that they shouldn't topple the great Jenga tower of time or something. He was stood, looking out over the sea melancholically towards the horizon.

"This is what it's like all the time," he stood up, jumped off the wall, and walked over to the TARDIS. He pushed opened the doors.  
"Do you still want to travel with me?"

"Yeah," she mumbled awkwardly. "Why wouldn't I?"

"I… I don't know. I suppose it's been quite a day – you've seen the whole reign of Cleopatra in just a few hours and you've seen barbaric cyborgs from outer space converting the dead – it's not usually as… heavy-going as that, first time around."

"Of course I want to come. You make mistakes. You mucked around with Cleopatra, treated her life as if you were just… a robot. I can't let you go around doing that."

The Doctor looked up at her, a sheepish look on his face, and he was grateful. She was right, and he was definitely wrong. And he regretted everything he'd done. Mistakes he'd made before had come back to haunt him, and he needed Lizzie to prevent him from doing them again.

As Lizzie watched him, she knew who the Doctor was. Or at least, she knew enough.

So, she stepped through the doors into the bigger-on-the-inside box, when suddenly she turned as the Doctor shut the doors behind her.

"Does the TARDIS have a speaker?"

"Absolutely," the Doctor walked over to a subwoofer speaker – he flicked a switch, and blew a layer of dust off the top. "The connector is just there," he pointed to a wire on the console. Lizzie plugged in her phone, and the Doctor launched the TARDIS off into the stars.

Then he sat back on the leather seat in anticipation of the music.

 _A thousand thundering thrills await me_

 _Facing insurmountable odds gratefully_

 _The female of the species is more deadly than the male_

Lizzie looked shyly towards him as the electronic drumbeat and xylophones rang throughout the halls of the TARDIS, as if she were opening up some part of her that had, so far, remained hidden. Music was a powerful thing, and Lizzie waited awkwardly, leaning against the console and humming quietly to herself. It was the sort of moment where one should probably sing, or dance, or something – but they were both absorbed in the melody, and the lyrics – and it was strangely comfortable anyway.

"Oh…," Lizzie remembered something. "One more thing."

"I think I know what you're going to say."

The Doctor had been thinking exactly the same thing.

"You remember the professor? Ameera?"

"I do," the Doctor stood up from the seat, and pulled down a lever. He had already typed the coordinates into the machine.

"Oh? Are you… okay with it now?"

"Yes. I think three wise women made me realise. Time to use time travel for good."

Seconds later, they arrived in the library again, in 2017. Ameera couldn't believe her eyes.

"Fact or fiction… who knows," the Doctor strode to the TARDIS doors, opening up a universe of adventure. "Cleopatra was the greatest enigma, a victim to her misconception, and it's about time we did something about that. When we do things we previously thought of as impossible, we just accept them. Because… the world is strange enough. And perhaps with Cleopatra… nobody bothered to unwrap the impossible… and so she _became_ impossible. Until now."

As the TARDIS flew away, Lizzie was happy. She was more than happy. Cleopatra had wanted her story told.

Finally, it had happened.


	5. 503 False Hope

**10 years ago**

It was a stormy day, possibly the stormiest she had seen in a long time. Rain battered onto the ground mercilessly, drenching those who were astray and flooded the streets. She wished it could drown away the sins — specifically hers.

Another crash of thunder.

It was a bad idea. She knew it was a bad idea, but she was alone now and she needed to know that her little one wouldn't end up like her father. She needed to know that the baby wouldn't end up looking like him. The pain was fresh, and she would do anything to avoid it for the rest of her life.

A flash of lightning.

The figure stood before her. There wasn't a spectacular reveal or a dramatic montage, it just appeared out of thin air. The silver sheen glinted in the blue light, and the bandoleer strapped around its waist was visible. She took a steadying breath, and took a step closer.

"Are you the Dealer?"

She felt a little ridiculous having to utter the words aloud, like an immature teenager buying restricted products from a sleazy hoodlum, but desperation often overrode coherent thought.

"I'm here to make a deal."

The creature tilted its head, as if it was regarding her, before pushing out a grey spherical orb from its bandoleer. The hatch at the top opened, and a blue interface materialised in the air. A stream of numerical data hovered in the air in front of her.

"Name," the creature hissed with a click of its tongue. It was a grating noise, like a nail on a chalkboard.

"Aurea —"

"The child's name," the creature interrupted her.

Aurea regarded him with suspicion. "Why?"

"For the database," the Dealer insisted. "Name of the child."

Aurea gulped and uttered, "Jada. Her name is Jada."

"How will you pay tonight?"

She produced a stick of credits from her pocket, holding it in her shaky, outstretched palm. "With —" she coughed to hide the tremor in her voice, and tried again, "with this."

A few minutes later, after the transaction had been complete, the creature handed her the orb. Aurea noticed the talons embedded in its skin. It nodded at her and turned away. "You have a deal," it whispered, before disappearing in a flash of blue light.

Aurea stood in the alleyway for several seconds, staring at the orb blankly. Eventually, she pushed it into her back pocket, raised her hood and left the area, trying all the while to squash the feeling that she had made a terrible mistake. It was not a mistake, what she did was right. Her child would have the best life she could ever possibly hope for.

* * *

 **Present Day**

There were very few things in the world that excited Jada terribly. In fact, she could count them all on one hand, and she only needed to use two fingers. She loved the bedtime stories her mother would tell her while she was tucked up in bed, in that instance of time between feeling so alive and awake and fast asleep the next, and she loved her birthday. Unlike everybody else, who loved the opportunity to go up top and mingle with the posh birds, Jada just loved to wake up to the smell of freshly made apple and orange crumble-tart, and freshly squeezed chocolate juice. Rations were few and far between in these harsh times, but her mother always saved up money in a little jar for this occasion. It made Jada happy. It made her feel loved.

But she didn't wake up to a retro fire in the hearth, or the smell of apple and orange crumble. In fact, the house didn't feel like a home at all. It was cold. So cold that she could feel the chill through the warm covers and the hairs on the back of her neck. Slowly, the little girl slid out of bed, and looked around. Everything looked normal. Her disgustingly garish honey-yellow walls were intact, and her cot was still in the corner of the room. Padding towards the sealed door, she ran her hand along the interface on the side and tentatively poked her head out when it slid open.

"Hello? Mummy?"

No response, The bare room was devoid of life. Even the bright blue wallpaper looked dull and fragile. Her mum wasn't in sight. Moving further into the room, she looked into the kitchen bar. To her disappointment, there were no ingredients and supplies for her favourite birthday breakfast. She peeked at the holo-jar, expecting to see the coins still inside, but it was empty.

She furrowed her brow, confused and slid her hand against the monitor. The shutter blocking the view outside the window was lifted, and the little girl peered out. The streets were empty as well. Not even a spin-droid in sight. Her street was often quiet, but this felt...different...disconcerting. There was usually a little crash as the metal mice prowled for food, or a drunk would collapse in the abandoned shelter further down the street. Little noises ‒ just to remind Jada that she was still alive, but now there was nothing.

The first few ripples of fear washed over Jada. Questions left her puzzled, and her mind whirred trying to solve them. Where was her mother? Why was it so cold for a summer morning? Where was everybody? A beep startled her out of her ruminations, and the now ten-year-old girl spun around to see a holographic data board materialise on the holo-caster, which was essentially a television screen floating in the air. A red sign flashed intermittently beside it, just a little to the left ‒ a telltale sign a message was left for her.

Jada walked towards the screen, then she hesitated, then she moved back to her room, and then she turned back to the screen. She continued this motion of hesitation almost comically, deciding whether or not the message was worth it. She could wrap up warm and go look for her mother outside, or she could stay and listen to the message. She didn't know who it was by. Anybody who had access to their specific holo-frequency could leave a message. Eventually, the little girl decided she was being ridiculous and approached the holo-screen. She slid her hand across the button and waited for the message to boot up. Her mother had told her the tales about the internet speed on her home planet, and how awful it was, but she was positively sceptical. Adults had the annoying habit of being more technologically inept than they wished to let on. That's what her friends always said.

The message finally stopped buffering, and an image of a woman appeared in front of her. It wasn't artificial, there was no clear distinction to prove that she was a hologram. The colour in her skin, the little hand motions, the lack of grain and the texture definition almost fooled Jada into thinking her mother was actually in the room with her.

Almost.

"Dear Jada," the hologram-mother said, before she stopped and curled her nose. "Oh, that sounds so formal! I've no idea why people were always so fond of that phrase. Anyways, hello, sweetheart! I'll be gone by the time you get this message, won't I? No worries, I'll just put something together for you to eat."

Jada's shoulders sagged as she allowed herself to relax. She hadn't realised she had been so tense. She laughed at herself for being so silly. Of course everything was fun. She was just paranoid because her mum was running a little later than usual. That was it.

Jada padded over to the sofa, picked up her favourite teddy bear, and waited.

One hour later, her mother hadn't come home. She must have got stuck in shopping, or traffic. Jada wrung her hands tighter and waited.

Two hours later, there was a knock on the door. It was at this exact moment Jada realised that there wasn't any food for her, like her mother had said there would be. There was another bout of door-knocking, and Jada suddenly felt very anxious. Her mum wouldn't knock on the door, she would just register her palm-print.

Warily, she edged closer towards the door. This was a very, very silly idea. She had seen the classic horror movies, even though they were not suitable for children her age, and she knew all the signs. But there was a curiosity gnawing at her gut, a tugging that she couldn't resist. She reached the window-port, and twisted the dial. The black cover slowly lifted to reveal transparent glass, and beyond it was a woman dressed all in blue, with a blue cap resting on her head. There was an insignia stitched onto the fabric covering her right breast ‒ the universal emblem of the police force.

The woman looked at her through the glass. Her eyebrows were knitted together and a frown was visible on her lips.

"This is Detective Montoya," the woman addressed Jada sternly. She had an air of authority about her, like a schoolteacher, not that they had schoolteachers anymore. "May I come in? I have news about your mother."

 **PROLOGUE**

 **THE EIGHTH DOCTOR ADVENTURES**

 **SERIES 5 - EPISODE 3**

 **FALSE HOPE**

 **WRITTEN BY ZOE LANCE**

"It's a long way to Tipperary, it's a long way to go, " the Doctor hummed to himself as he set about pulling levers and pushing buttons in the TARDIS control room. The standard bright white luminescent glow had been dimmed, and the only source of light was from the stars above the hexagonal skylight. They were an odd assortment; glittering white stars, technicolour nebulae and booming red giants all crammed together in their own special gravitational pull, their own little secret.

"It's a long way to Tipperary to the sweetest girl I know..."

The TARDIS herself was also remarkably quiet. She had been for a while now, and he couldn't really blame her. They hadn't been alone for a while now. But even so, as he hummed melodiously and danced gracefully around the console, she provided him with her own special tune in the form of gentle thrums and whirs. He patted her rotor happily. It was just the two of them.

"Goodbye Piccadilly, farewell Leicester Square...It's a long, long way to Tipperary…"

He paused, and looked around the room in confusion. He wasn't alone anymore, he had to remember that. His eyes searched for the petite brunette woman, but she was nowhere to be seen. His frown deepened, and he pushed his hands off the console.

"Lizzie?" he called out, expecting an immediate response followed by some cluttering and murmured curses, but his only greeting was the cold silence. He looked at the TARDIS rotor thoughtfully. "Have you seen her, old girl?"

His response was a garbled whirr and a compressed hiss.

"Oh, don't make me go looking," he whined. "They always come when I call, that's the rule."

The TARDIS stood her ground.

"Fine," the Doctor grumbled, spinning around and walking towards the door, managing about five big steps, before turning back around again. "But I'm putting this down as harassment!"

The TARDIS hissed at him so quietly he almost missed it.

"I heard that." He glared, turned back around and resumed walking. The corridor was an ever-changing structure, never sticking to one form for a day or so. Today, it was a narrow corridor with doors dotted along the side at equal distances, but there were so few that they were stretched at wide lengths to maintain a vast illusion. The doors themselves varied in shapes and sizes. Some were stone archways, some were generic gun-grey hatches and others were simple wooden doors.

The Doctor veered towards one of the wooden doors, twisted the knob and stepped through.

On the other side was a seemingly endless room with a vast row of bookshelves, stacked to the rim with books of every kind, structured like a labyrinthine maze that was easy to get lost in if you weren't careful. There was a unique smell about the room, the musky smell of old books intermingled with the sleek metallic taste of the ship; It was a combination that surprisingly worked, in this instance. On the far end of the room was a balcony overlooking the stars and planets below. It was a peaceful place, he didn't appreciate it enough.

"Oh." Lizzie was perched atop one of the cozy seats besides the fireplace, a cup of tea on the armrest and a book resting comfortably in her hands. It was a ratty old book, the spine was aged and the Doctor could spot a few smudges and stains on the pages, but there was an air of familiarity in the way she held it. Right now, she was looking up at him in surprise. "Hiya. How'd you find me?"

"I just have a thing."

"A...thing?" Lizzie pursed her lips in confusion. "What do you mean?"

The Doctor waved an arm theatrically. "I felt as if I needed to look in here. I have a sixth sense."

Lizzie looked impressed. "Really?"

"No. The TARDIS guided me here."

"Oh." Her mouth curled into a frown, and she looked down at her book, before remembering that she was supposed to maintain conversation and looked back up again. "Sorry. Do you need me for something?"

"No, no." The Doctor looked around. "Just wondering where you were. I see you've found the library."

"Yeah. I mean, I like reading. And this is a library, so," she said, smiling at the thought. "Do you like books?"

"Yes," the Doctor nodded. "Books are good."

"Yeah." They both lapsed into an awkward silence, neither of them used to the awareness required to carry a conversation, for very different reasons. The Doctor shuffled awkwardly, wondering where all his extravagance and charisma had gone, and Lizzie thumbed the spine of her book, wondering how exactly people were supposed to progress with small talk in general.

"What's it called? The book, I mean."

Lizzie looked down at the book, and a smile tugged at the corners of her lips. It was a secret smile, the Doctor thought, one that was reserved for herself and her unique history only. She opened her mouth to reveal the answer, but the TARDIS shuddered so violently at that precise moment that the Doctor was thrown off his feet and onto the floor below. He didn't sustain any injuries, as a hideous tartan rug cushioned his fall.

"What was that?" Lizzie, who was still perched on the side of her chair, asked curiously. The Doctor didn't answer right away ‒ he was trying to figure out who would leave such an abomination in his library ‒ so she continued. "Have we landed?"

"Shouldn't think so." The Doctor pushed himself to his feet. "I didn't set any coordinates."

"Crashed into something, then?" she guessed. "Is that a thing that happens?"

"Far too often," the Doctor chuckled. He gestured towards the door. "Come on, we better go see what that was about."

They both left the library behind them and walked into the console room.

* * *

 **Holo-Diary Entry 1**

"Is this thing on? Erm...hello. The lady said that this would help me. So...day one: mummy hasn't come home yet. I know she will. Maybe she's in the up-state or something. The police lady stayed with me all night and gave me food, but she kept hugging me. I don't want hugs. Only mummy gives me hugs. I know she's coming back. She's just late."

* * *

"Right, let's have a look."

The Doctor dove straight for the monitor as soon as they had entered the room and fiddled with various dials and contraptions Lizzie didn't fully understand. She looked down at her hands, realised that her book was still in her hands, and gently put it down on the chair.

"Hmm," the Doctor ruminated quietly. Lizzie turned to him and noticed his troubled expression. She was by his side in an instant, and peered over his shoulder to see what had caught his attention. The screen was flickering sporadically, like an old TV with a misplaced aerial.

"I'm guessing that's not good."

"Your guess is correct," the Doctor murmured. "Something out there is blocking the TARDIS scan."

"Can that happen?" Lizzie asked. Her question was drowned out by a deep, metallic rumble. The Doctor looked up at the rotor.

"What's wrong, old girl?" he chirruped nurturingly, pressing a hand against the console. "Not feeling well?"  
He received a faint groan in response, which did nothing to alleviate his concerns.  
"No, no," he cooed. "You rest up. I'll do the work for both of us. Besides, I'm not sure Cioné would forgive me if I overworked you."

"We've definitely landed then," Lizzie noted. "And the TARDIS isn't feeling well. What does this mean?"

"It means…" the Doctor looked at her gravely. Lizzie tensed instantly at the look. "...we're going to have to look outside for ourselves."

She deflated instantly. Thank God it wasn't something catastrophic. Her relief was quickly replaced by incredulity. "Seriously?"

"Well, I'm an aging man. I don't always want the surprise and suspense for every destination," he rambled as they left the console and walked towards the doors. Lizzie simply nodded, mainly because she was worried that if she opened her mouth, she would accuse him of lying (which he clearly was) in a spectacularly awkward manner. The Doctor opened the door, poked his head out, and looked at her. "Have you got a coat?"

Lizzie sighed. "Rain or chill?"

"Rain." He looked impressed. "You didn't ask the obvious question."

"The obvious question being 'why'?" Lizzie guessed. She smiled slightly when the Doctor nodded. "Growing up in a care home, you sort of have to develop this sort of acute sixth-sense for questions to like, not be patronised." She repeated the sentence in her head and cringed. "I mean ‒"

"No, it's okay, I understood you," the Doctor assured her.

"Right, yeah," Lizzie trailed off. "I didn't bring one. Coat, I mean. It was all a sort of rush. Do you have a wardrobe? And comfortable clothes? I mean, no offense but I don't really want to walk around looking like Byron, haha."

The Doctor chuckled. "Don't worry, the TARDIS wardrobe has a variety of clothing. First left, second right, third on the left, go straight ahead, under the stairs, past the bins, fifth door on your left."

She stared at him blankly. "Could you repeat that?"

* * *

 **Holo-Diary Entry 2**

"This holo-caster ball is weird.. I didn't really look at it before because...you know, but it's so round. Like, perfectly round, and it's so smooth. It almost slips out of my fingers. You don't get stuff like this anymore. Everything's all manu‒ manu...made in big posh factories. They're always boring colours, but this isn't. It's all bright and colourful and shines when we have sunlight. I wonder where Mummy got it. I want to ask, but mummy's gone now."

* * *

The rain had mostly stopped by the time the Doctor and Lizzie had stepped outside. To Lizzie's disappointment, they had merely landed in a narrow alleyway. Dirt and grime clung to the worn out brick walls and a light splatter of rain drizzled off the rooftops aboves, flowed onto the muddy ground and into poorly maintained sewage grates. The Doctor stepped out into the alleyway, waited for Lizzie to follow suit, shut the door behind him, and grimaced when his boot made contact with a thick brown sludge. He frowned at the stench and sight of rotting, decomposing food.

"It's very smelly," he exclaimed suddenly. Lizzie hummed in agreement, checking to make sure her converses weren't stained. They were her favourite pair, and she'd hate to part with them. The Doctor fished out his sonic screwdriver, and started a scan. He slowly whirled on the spot, like a tourist getting their bearings, his eyebrows knitted together in concentration.

"Will she be alright?" Lizzie asked, looking up at the TARDIS in concern. "She wasn't like this last time."

"Hmm?" the Doctor tilted his head slightly in her direction, but his eyes were rooted on the screwdriver. "Oh, she'll be fine. Just needs a bit of a rest. Do you like rests, Lizzie?"

"No." Lizzie kicked an empty can across the alleyway. "Well, I dunno. I don't get enough of it to really judge, you know?" Lizzie couldn't decipher if the Doctor's responding hum was one of acknowledgment or validation of one of his harebrained theories. The low-pitched warble of the screwdriver rose an octave as he strode through the alleyway.

"Come have a look at this."

He didn't listen then, she thought glumly. "What is it?"

"Not sure yet, but it's definitely a point of interest." He smiled at her. "Not as interesting as pre-history, but it'll do."

"It wasn't prehistory, it was the past," Lizzie corrected as she hurried to catch up to him, making sure to avoid contact with any of the sewage.

"It's all pre-history to me," he shrugged nonchalantly. Lizzie found that rather callous. She was about to point that out, but the Doctor cut her off with a, "oh, listen to that." the screwdriver was practically wailing now, the tip glowing a fervent crimson colour. "Definitely a point of interest somewhere...out here."  
They had reached the end of the alleyway, and were greeted by an empty street, illuminated by dimly lit lamps. The light drizzle of rain persisted, and it was starting to soak into the fabric of Lizzie's coat. The Doctor surveyed the street with pursed lips.

"Strange." He looked down at the beeping screwdriver in bemusement. "There's nothing of importance that I can see."

"Could be faulty," Lizzie suggested.

"Hmm. No. No, it never gets faulty." the Doctor murmured, looking across the street. "There's something I'm missing. We should ‒"

"Don't say split up," Lizzie interrupted suddenly. The Doctor's mouth hung open like a fish and he turned to look at her in surprise. "Sorry, that was really random. But still, splitting up is a bad idea. I mean, we could...get ambushed. Or something." She coughed awkwardly.

The Doctor stared at her. "Oh...right. No, you're right."

"It's just ‒ I watch crime dramas a lot. At night." Lizzie continued, in a stilted manner that made her scream inside. "It was ‒ it was just a thought."

"No, no. You're right. Splitting up is a bad idea," the Doctor interjected. "And I'm sure your knowledge in the criminal genre will prove to be useful one day."

"Yeah, probably...maybe. I just sort of blurted that out because we're in a street, and there's nobody around. That's classic ambush material."

The Doctor's eye widened as the truth dawned on him. He spun on the spot and surveyed his surroundings. "You're right."

"We're going to get ambushed?" Lizzie knew that probably wasn't what he meant, but it never hurt to have a little clarification.

"No, no, no. There's nobody around." He spun to face her again. "Elizabeth Darwin, you are shaping up to be quite the genius!"

Lizzie blinked. "Thanks, but I wouldn't go that far."

"Even so, you're still correct! The street is empty. And do you know what this was registering?" He held up the sonic screwdriver for Lizzie to see.

She looked at him in puzzlement. "What?"

"Life signs!" he exclaimed jovially. He was probably enjoying himself a bit too much. "Come on, we'll start ‒"

"Joseph!"

The voice caught them both off guard. Spinning on his heels, the Doctor noticed an elderly lady with a shock of grey hair and large, cat-like eyes hobbling in their direction.

"Joseph!" She repeated. The Doctor turned around in search for this mysterious 'Joseph', half-expecting to see a man with a very expressive face. He was quite surprised when the woman grabbed him by the arm and let out a contented sigh. "There you are, my dear! Didn't you hear me call?"

The Doctor blinked. "Sorry?"

"Oh, don't be like that, sweetheart. You know your grandmother isn't built for all this running."

"Ah," the Doctor looked around nervously. "Ah. There must be some misunderstanding. You see, I'm not ‒"

"Oh, whatever it is, it can wait! Come," she tugged on his sleeve, and the Doctor was surprised when she managed to drag him across the street. "Your tea's getting cold! Oh, I made you a new sweater and everything, you'll have to try it on."

"...right," he mumbled as he stumbled after her, looking back at Lizzie with a dazed expression. Lizzie stared back, deeply confused by the sudden turn of events, and offered the Doctor a small smile, hoping it looked consoling, but knowing that it probably came across as terrifying. She hurried after them after they turned a corner, but stopped when she heard a crash behind her.

The lamps flickered ominously, casting deep shadows across the street walls. Lizzie wasn't tremendously scared of shadows — one of her favourite hobbies as a child was to make elaborate shadow puppets — but there was something unnerving about a desolate street in the middle of nowhere. Anything could happen, and nobody would ever know. She shivered at the thought, before jumping at the sound of another crash. It startled her to realise the crash was coming from above. She looked up when a flash of bright blue light invaded her vision, the light spittle of rain morphed into a fat torrential army that soaked right through her already wet clothes, and left her drenched.

Another flash of thunder highlighted a passing blur. She didn't have a great deal of time to identify any distinctive features, but Lizzie noted the slender shape. She wasn't alone. She took a step back, considered calling out for the Doctor, but reasoned that the old lady would have dragged him out of earshot by now.

A crackling boom masked the heavy footfalls as the figure advanced on her, and another bout of thunder was the last thing she heard before everything went black.

* * *

 **Holo-Diary Entry 3**

"Day 3. I'm making these daily, because the police lady said that it would help. They've sent out papers to the local care homes to see if I can live with them in their acc ‒ acco…their house. She said it could take a long time for the papers to come back, so I have to stay home by myself until then. I don't mind it, but I wish mum would come home. I have to call her mum now because I'm a big girl and I can't cry, that's what they said. But…I'm lonely. I want my mummy. I want her to come home."

* * *

"Oh!" the old woman giggled when another crash of thunder echoed above their heads. "Horrible weather, isn't it? I should have brought my shawl!"

"Oh, you can wear my coat," the Doctor suggested, already tugging the sleeve off before the lady waved a hand dismissively.

"Oh, no, don't you worry, my dear Joseph. We're almost there anyway, look!" she pointed at a derelict little cottage on the side of the road in the distance. It looked out of place on what, the Doctor surmised from visual clues, was an abandoned council estate. The rain had picked up at a fervent pace, prompting them to walk faster to avoid catching colds — a difficult feat to achieve for a Time Lord. The Doctor tuned back into the conversation when he realised the lady was still rambling. "…and there's plenty of room for you, and your — oh. Now where has she got to?"

"Eh?" The Doctor craned his head backwards, expecting to find Lizzie looking back at him with an awkward wave on standby, but she was absent. He slowed his pace and surveyed the nearby area, concluding that she was just walking at a leisurely pace and would soon be within sight. A few seconds passed before he realised that she had truly disappeared. "Lizzie?"

A flash of blue light.

"Lizzie?" he called out, a frown marring his expression. He skidded to a halt, and the woman stopped a second later.

A loud clap of thunder.

"Lizzie?" he tried again, more desperately. "Lizzie!"

"Oh, do stop shouting," the woman tutted, grabbing him by the arm again. "She's obviously not here, and we're going to catch our deaths waiting. Come, we need to get warm."

"But —"

"Oh, do stop arguing, Joseph." The woman tugged him further down the road. "Listen to your grandma for once, won't you?"

"But I'm not —"

"Ah, ah! I will hear no more arguing. We rest up, and then we look for her, understood?"

The Doctor sighed begrudgingly. "Fine."

The woman looked satisfied with his answer, but she didn't release his arm. With pursed lips, the produced his sonic screwdriver, and scanned the area as they walked. The steady buzz provided him a little comfort from his erratic thoughts. His brain was unhelpfully devising every possible scenario that could go wrong. It was a surprisingly common occurrence recently. If anything happened to Lizzie, it would be his fault for not being as attentive as he should have been.

The scan finished with a beep. There were no Artron-infused life signs registered, which meant that Lizzie was somewhere else. He scratched at the scalp of his head, wondering where to start, when they reached the cottage. The woman hurriedly pressed her palm against a metal panel on the left side of the door. There was a flash of green light and the door swung open soundlessly. They entered the house just as another crash of thunder boomed loudly, sending shock-waves up the Doctor's arm. There was something different about this particular thunderstorm, but he couldn't place his finger on why.

The clink of a cup jolted him out of his musings, and the Doctor realised that he had been left alone; he used the opportunity to examine his surroundings. The cottage was small, barely a little more than a hut. It had that cramped, homey feel in holiday brochure and had the musky smell of coffee and burning wood. The room he was in consisted of a makeshift study and living room simultaneously. A small, round table was situated in the corner of the room, to the right of the door, and a few pictures of quaint holiday destinations were secure in a plethora of picture frames — some were small and round, some were large and rectangular, and some were the most basic frames. Further into the room was a fireplace with a roaring fire and a small rocking chair beside it. On the armrest lay a pair of knitting needles and a ball of yarn was bunched up into a circle on the seat itself. Beyond that were two doors, one open and one closed. The Doctor guessed that they made up the bedroom and kitchen respectively. He briefly wondered where her bathroom was, before his thoughts returned to Lizzie.

The Doctor approached the table, and tentatively brushed his fingers over the faded out newspapers stacked high onto the table. The headline on the first paper caught the Doctor's attention — 'Freak Storms linked to Mysterious Disappearances?' .

His eyes drifted to the name and picture on the byline, Meera Amin, a professional-looking Indian woman in a blazer and skirt. Her eyes seemed to glint mischievously in the firelight, like a woman on a mission. Pictures of reporters on bylines, that was new. The Doctor twisted his wrist to flip the paper over and skimmed the back. Nothing to note. He returned his attention to the main headline.

"I've made us some tea," the woman said kindly as she hobbled back into the living room carrying a tray supporting two cups of tea and biscuits. She smiled graciously when the Doctor helpfully took the tray out of her hand, and took a seat in the armchair. "Should warm us right up."

"That's very kind," the Doctor said as he set the tray down, hooked an arm over a chair, dragged it towards him loudly, and slouched into it.

The woman grimaced at his lazy posture. "What bad manners have you picked up?" she tutted, taking a cup of tea from the tray and taking a tentative sip, her disapproving eyes trained on the Doctor at all times. "I hope it wasn't from that girl. Oh, the thought of it! I've told you over and over, Joseph. Don't loiter with ruffians! They'll only bring you down."

The Doctor blinked. "Eh? Lizzie isn't a ruffian. And might I clarify, I am not —"

"Eh'?" the woman looked startled. "Joseph, where have you picked up these awful mannerisms?"

The Doctor sighed. This had gone far enough.

"Well?" she looked aggravated now.

"Look, Mrs…?" he trailed off, and waved his hand to prompt her.

"Baggot!" she exclaimed indignantly. "Aldora Baggot!"

"Oh, really?" he wrinkled his nose. "Suppose that would make me Joseph Baggot, then."

"Why, you insolent boy —"

"No, wait!" the Doctor talked over her. "Sorry, I got a bit carried away there. What I mean to say is, Mrs Baggot, I'm not your Joseph. That is to say, I'm not your grandson."

Aldora glowered at him. "This is a cruel game, Joseph."

"Listen to me, please," he implored. He was starting to get a little impatient. "I am not trying to be cruel or nasty whatsoever. I am merely stating the truth. My name is not Joseph Baggot, I am not your grandson, Mrs Baggot, and please do not take offence when I say that I have never met you before in my entire life."  
Aldora's stern stare did not waver. If anything, it bore into the Doctor more intensely until it was almost piercing.

He moved closer and placed a hand on her shoulder after some hesitation. "I am sorry."

With that, followed by an undecipherable glint in her eyes, Aldora's defences crumbled.

"I knew it was too good to be true," she whispered mournfully. Her stiff posture relaxed and she brought a hand to her mouth."Oh, heavens. Don't mind me, dear. I'm just…feeling a little emotional." She sighed. "Oh, look at you. I dragged you here for no reason, haven't I? Such a blunder. I'm terribly sorry, my dear. What did you say your name was?"

"That's quite alright," the Doctor assured her. "And my name's the Doctor."

"Doctor Who?"

"Just the Doctor."

Aldora frowned again. "Are you sure? It's terribly formal. How about Doctor Joseph — no, I must stop doing that. You're not him, after all. What about…Scott? Dean? Miranda?"

"The Doctor's just fine," he asserted. "Why did you think I was Joseph?"

"Oh, you look so much like him," she croaked. "I know there's all that malarkey of identical twins across the world and all that rubbish, but I didn't believe it until I saw you!"

"I see. And where —"

"I had just knitted him a new scarf, you see," she continued. "And I was just so eager because I hadn't seen you…him, for days now."

"Right, but where did you last see him?"

"Oh, can't help you there, mate," she chuckled. "My memory's going. Old age, you see. Do you know, I once saw a holo-documentary about this dreadful memory-loss incident that plagued a colony in Meta Sigma Folio."

"Yes, yes, but do you think he's disappeared?"

"Of course he's disappeared, you silly man! He's not bloody here, is he?"

"Does he usually disappear?"

"Of course not, you fool! Why do you think I was out looking for him? He's all I've got left, my dear Joseph —"

"Do you think his disappearance could be linked to the other ones?" The Doctor snapped. His patience was starting to wear thin.

"You what?"

Aldora furrowed her brow. "Well, it might. He went out during a terrible storm."

"Like the one outside?" he asked.

"Yes, I suppose."

"Right." He shook his head suddenly, "No."

"What?"

The Doctor raised a finger to his lip and hushed her. Aldora glared at him but relented, and listened. Her eyes darted around the room in confusion, trying to locate the source of his actions, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. Everything was located in their respective areas, the tea was still on the tray, and the fire was still crackling in the hearth.

"Notice anything out of the ordinary?"

"No," she admitted. "Everything is quite normal."

"Exactly. The storm's stopped," he pointed out. "It stopped the moment we entered the cottage."

"Had it?" she tilted her head in confusion. "I didn't realise."

"Must have some sort of suggestion built in," the Doctor mused. "Only superior beings would have been able to pick it up. No offence."

"Yeah, offence taken, if that's alright with you," she said crossly. "Just because I'm old doesn't make me inferior, thank you very much."

The Doctor had the decency to look chastised. "Yes, quite," he said sheepishly as he heaved himself off the chair. "Right, enough of that. My friend's still out there somewhere and, if she's been kidnapped like I think she has been, I have to go look for her."

"What, on your own?"

"Yup, don't worry, I'll be fine. I usually do this all the time."

"I'm sure you do, and that's all very good, but I'm coming with you."

"What? No!" he exclaimed, but Aldora was already out of her seat and hurrying into the closed door before he even finished. She emerged a second later, with a coat and crimson shawl in hand. "Put that down!"

"Why?"

"Well, this could be dangerous, and I don't want to put your life at risk."

"You're not. I'm putting my own life at risk." She spoke as if she wasn't taking his claims seriously, so he grabbed her shoulder and forced her to look at him.  
"I'm serious," he stressed. "This could be dangerous. I can't guarantee your safety."

"Do you know what I am, Doctor?" Aldora asked him, but she clearly wasn't waiting for an answer, "A nanny, to all the little tots in the neighbourhood. Once you deal with those rascals, everything you could possibly experience in later life is watered down. And don't you worry about me slowing you down. I have the feet and stamina of an athlete.

The Doctor searched her eyes, a cryptic expression on his face. Finally, he released her with a frown. "Alright, if you're sure. Let's get going then."

"Wait!" she gasped. "I've just forgotten something important!"

"What is it? New information that could help us find Lizzie and Joseph?"

"No! My knitting needles!" she spun around and swiped the objects off the armrest. The Doctor rolled his eyes but hurriedly plastered a smile on his face once she turned back around. "All ready now!"

"I could have left you behind in that time, you know," the Doctor warned as they left the cottage. Aldora pressed her hand to the monitor again, and the green glow was replaced by a red one. She closed the hatch and turned back to him.

"I doubt it, dear, that door's keyed to my palm print. You'd never have gotten out," she responded confidently, and looped her arm with his. "Honestly, Doctor, you talk as if you've never been to New New Earth before."

"New New Earth?" the Doctor mulled on the designation while they walked, but eventually shrugged sheepishly. "Well, I haven't."

"Oh, are you a tourist then? I knew there was a reason I didn't recognise you."

"Yeah, you could say that," he responded, but his eyes were fixed on the horizon, a new determination ignited in his being. He narrowed his eyes in thought and muttered quietly, "Where are you, Lizzie?"

* * *

 **Holo-Diary Entry 4**

"Me again. I know I said that I would make these daily, but everything's been a rush and it's already been a week! They rejected my form thingy for the home — said they can't…'afford' me? To have me? I dunno — so I have to stay home! I'm ten now, so I'm allowed to live by myself for 19 hours a day, but the police lady has to be with me for the rest. She usually comes in the morning to make me home-made breakfast and make sure everything's okay. I like her but she's SO ANNOYING sometimes! It's always 'Brush your teeth, Jada, that's what they did back in the Stone Age!' or 'Did you do your homework, Jada?'. Bla, bla, bla! I hate it! Mum never used to be like this! I still miss her, but I know she's not coming back now, just like Dad.

So, yeah. That was a lot, I think. Bye for now, diary!"

* * *

Lizzie had never been knocked out in her life — not to her knowledge, at least. She had kept her head down in school, avoided anything illicit and generally went about with her life, which was why the pain when she woke up was such a shock. Her eyelids stung, as if she had looked at the sun for too long, and her vision blurred. Her stomach twisted into knots and she felt a dizzying rush of nausea envelop her. Beats of sweat trailed down her face and her hair clung to her clammy forehead. Her breathing was laboured and it hurt her chest to try. Rolling to the side, she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to fight off the nausea. What had happened? It hurt too much to think.

Water. She focused on water. She needed it. Her throat was as dry as sandpaper, and it hurt to swallow her own saliva. Lizzie shuffled forward weakly, desperate for a cool drink. Her heart was hammering erratically in her chest. She needed to calm down, but she couldn't. In that moment, she was scared that she would die from a panic attack, alone on an unknown planet without the company of Maggie or Pat or anyone else she was comfortable enough to call her family.

"It's okay," a female voice quietly whispered. Lizzie zoned in on the voice, and rolled over once again. A pretty Chinese woman around her age was huddled in the corner. Her pale complexion was sullied by dirt and her light-ish brown hair was frazzled and clumped in bunches, as if she had pulled at it in frustration. Whoever she was, she was studying her intently. "It's the transmat, leaves you feeling a bit crap for a while. Okay, more than a bit crap. Messes with your head, heightens your emotions even more for fun. You need to calm down."

If Lizzie had the energy, she would muster up a sassy retort before letting it die down in her throat. She did not need a stranger to dictate how she felt. Her head was pounding, something she hadn't realised before, and she looked at the only company in the room with wide eyes.

The woman shuffled closer and pressed a hand against hers. She didn't look particularly comfortable doing it, and maintained her distance, so Lizzie guessed that she was the type of person who avoided physical contact like the plague. That was okay, she was the same. If a fear of physical contact was an allergy, Lizzie would have been diagnosed within the first minute. The closer proximity allowed her to identify the Chinese woman's clothing. She wasn't dressed in anything too extravagant, just a simple, modest-sized white floral print dress and flat shoes.

"It's okay," she repeated in a soft voice. "You're safe. You're with me. My name is Meera. Trust me, you'll feel better after you've had some rest."

Lizzie's eyes started to droop. God, she was so tired. Maybe the woman, Meera, was right. Her head lolled to the side, and her eyes drifted shut.

* * *

"Cold day, isn't it?" Aldora said aloud. The Doctor inwardly cringed at her attempt to make conversation. Small talk, one of humanity's greatest abominations. He decided to ignore her in favour of jumping over a large puddle, digging out his sonic screwdriver and scanning the area.

"There's something that's been eating away at me, Aldora," the Doctor confessed. He turned to her. "Where is everybody? Why is everything so barren?"

"It's always been barren, love," Aldora shrugged. " Ever since that contagion. As for the people, well…it's better if I just show you. See that woman over there?"  
She gestured towards a woman dressed in black hurrying across the road ahead towards a building ahead of them. She briefly glanced at them and looked away again.

"Watch this," Aldora planted a smile on her face and chased after the woman with a cheery wave. "Hullo! Cold day today, isn't it? I was just outside on a little stroll —"

"Please, I have no money," the woman said quickly. The Doctor noticed her wide eyes and stiff posture. She was terrified of a little old lady. "Just, leave me alone." With that, she turned and ran into a decrepit building, slamming the door behind her.

"Charming," Aldora huffed. "She thought I was a beggar! The cheek!"

"Earth still has beggars then," the Doctor murmured. He had hoped that something so cruel and unjust would have been sorted out at such an advanced stage, but maybe he was too optimistic. Or perhaps he was getting critical in his old age. The screwdriver beeped again and produced a complete scan. "Hello…"

The scans were registering a peculiar amount of life signatures in a single building a little further down the road. Not only that, the scans also registered an unidentified property near the bodies. He followed the trail, intrigued, with Ms Baggot close by.

"What is it?"

"Life signs. Something else, too."

"What's that, then?"

"I'm not entirely sure," he admitted.

The rain had stopped altogether, leaving behind water puddles of varying sizes. Despite leaving the alleyway behind in his wake, litter and abandoned knick-knacks plagued the street, and the Doctor could've sworn a rat scuttling along the worn concrete floor. As they continued their journey, he became aware of the attention he was receiving. People — mainly young women dressed in strange black outfits — stared at them as they passed, their looks a mixture of confusion and suspicion.

Aldora glared at them, and they all hurriedly looked away.

"Nosy buggers," she grumbled. "This is what those ruddy bleedin' hearts are teaching them. None of the discipline of my time."

The Doctor made a noise of acknowledgement, mainly to avoid putting his foot in his mouth and earning a lecture from the old lady who, he supposed, would have voted Leave if she had lived in another time. They turned a corner, and found themselves standing outside the home of the disturbance. A rundown, derelict building with sealed windows and chipped paintwork. The standard palm print scan was fully functioning, so the Doctor disabled it with the sonic screwdriver.

He pressed a hand to the door before turning to his elderly companion. "We don't know what we'll find in here. Are you ready?"

"Oh, just get on with it!" Aldora huffed.

"Alright, alright." He took a moment to prepare himself for the worst, and then he pushed the door open.

* * *

 **Holo-Diary Entry 5**

"Dear Diary, I'm being all posh now, can you tell? I'm scared. I'm being followed. I don't know who by or for how long, but…it's scary. There's always a knock on the door. A monster's out there and it's going to hurt me. I want my mummy. It always knocks on the door loudly at night time when I'm sleeping. I want my mum. I want my mummy. Why did she have to leave?

I saw it once, outside my window. It was dark but it was a person. I couldn't see anything else, like their face. I think…I think it's because it didn't have a face. It's a monster and it's going to eat me."

* * *

The door swung open quietly, allowing the Doctor and Aldora to slip in quietly. They kept their backs to the wall and shuffled further into the building. They were in a corridor of some sort, a dull, monotonous set of walls that blended into the cover of night seamlessly. They entered a large hallway that split off into three separate sections: an archway in the middle of the hallway, a dusty spiral staircase to their left, and a closed door to their right.

"Doctor…" Aldora whispered.

"I know."

In the centre of the room was a congregation of small children, possibly no older than ten or eleven. They stood in rows of five, with a total of twenty-five children. The Doctor circled around them slowly, leaning in to examine them further. The children remained unnervingly rigid and unresponsive.

"Interesting," he murmured. He suddenly shouted loudly into a child's face, but they remained silent. "Total shutdown."

"But why are they like that?" Aldora asked. "Is my Jacob here? I have to give him the mittens I knitted, the poor dear must be freezing."

"No, I don't think so. Lizzie isn't here either. I think I've been led astray." He looked at her. "Have you noticed it, Aldora?"

"Noticed what?"

"Their faces. Go on, take a closer look."

She pursed her lips. "I don't know.."

"They won't harm you."

"Oh…" she stared at him in apprehension for several more seconds, before caving in. "Oh, alright then."

At his behest, she waddled closer and peered nervously at a small girl.

"Her face is…blurry. Indistinct," she said slowly. "I can't quite make it out."

"It's a perception filter at work," the Doctor explained, running his sonic over the girl's face. "Low-level, I'd say. But I can't seem to find the right frequency to disrupt it." He looked down at the screwdriver with a frown. "Hmm, funny that. Notice anything else?"

"No."

"Yes, you do."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Look at them," he urged, bending down until he was eye-level with the girl to prove his point. "Their faces — they're perfectly symmetrical. Everything's all neat and straight and in-line. It's perfect. Human beings are not perfect. They have funny teeth or outrageous hair. This is like a child's doll. Someone's been tampering with these children."

"There have been rumours. Children and adults disappearing off the streets." Aldora chewed on her bottom lip. "Is there something you can do?"

"Possibly," the Doctor responded, and slowly rose from his crouch. It pained him, to see a child that was experimented on to look pristine. Humanity's perfect image. He stared darkly at his elderly companion. "Lizzie's out there."

"Yes, she is. We'd best find her."

"Yes, but before that," the Doctor stopped her before she could hurry away, and stared her down. "I think it's time you told me the truth, Aldora Baggot."

* * *

"Oh my god."

"Please, you need to do something, please – please."

Lizzie jolted awake with a start. Her heart hammered thunderously in her ribcage, and she was worried it would jump out of her throat. It took her a few seconds to calm herself down enough to function without looking completely shattered. She released a long, resigned sigh.

"Just a dream," she muttered in a foolhardy attempt to relax. She swiped at a trail of sweat and repeated, with more conviction, "just a dream."

"Sounded more like a nightmare to me."

Lizzie looked to her left. The girl, Meera, was sat in the corner watching her curiously. Her arms were wrapped around her legs and she was curled up in a little ball. The thought of her listening to Lizzie's nightmare-induced ramblings mortified her.

"Oh, hi," she attempted to be nonchalant, and probably failed. "Sorry, you probably didn't want to hear that."

"It's okay, you can't exactly control what you say in your sleep," Meera assured her.

"Probably why I don't get enough of it," she muttered.

"What was that?"

"Oh, nothing." She smiled and looked around. "Just glad to have some company. Where are we?"

"Dunno. A warehouse, maybe?"

Her suggestion seemed to match their surroundings. There was a stale, industrial air about the place, boxes were scattered everywhere, windows were sealed off, and there were bare shelves spanning the entire width of the room. Using the dim lighting, Lizzie pulled the flap of a brown box open. It was completely empty. She sighed and closed it. How had she even managed to get into this mess? She wracked her brain, trying to remember, but all she could remember was a thunderstorm.

"Feeling better?" Meera asked her, pulling Lizzie out of her thoughts.

"Actually, yeah. I feel much better thanks." She frowned. "How does that work?"

"Their transport rings could heighten emotional and physical states…" Meera looked distractedly to the side. "Or something. I dunno."

"Transport rings?"

"What's your name?"

Her mind took a second to process the abrupt change in conversation. "Lizzie. You're…Meera, right?"

"Yup," the woman smiled. "Meera…Amin. It's nice to meet you. Only wish it was under better circumstances, but it's great to finally have some company."

"How long have you been down here, Meera?"

"Hard to say. Those windows are sealed and block out any sunlight. The only light source is that flickering bulb up there."

Lizzie looked up. The only distinctive feature of the colourless ceiling was the single light fixture in the centre. It was like the bulbs from her time — if they operated under the pretence that she was in fact in the future, which was likely if she accounted for the talks of transport rings.

"How do we breathe?" she asked.

"Tiny grate over here," Meera shifted and showed her a small ventilation shaft. "Big enough to let air in, small enough to prevent escape. And the air travels in from outside so we're likely in a secluded area — why are you looking at me like that?"

"Hm? Oh, no reason. Sorry. Didn't mean to upset you or anything," Lizzie hastily replied, but she couldn't help but notice that, even though she had been kidnapped and locked in a possible warehouse, Meera didn't look very afraid.

* * *

"The truth? What do you mean?" Aldora laughed derisively. "This is absurd."

"Is it?" the Doctor challenged. Aldora stopped laughing, her mouth curled into a scowl, she straightened her posture and glared at him accusingly.

"How long have you known?" she asked in a cool, clipped tone.

"About your deception? The whole time," the Doctor revealed. "I mean, you conveniently happen to have a grandson who looks exactly like me? And you chalk it up to secret twins? That's one the most ridiculous excuses I've ever heard."

"That's all it took?"

"No," the Doctor bit. "Because even if I wasn't accounting for Spacial Genetic Multiplicity, I'd have enough to go on from the discrepancies."  
"What discrepancies?" she placed emphasis on the word and sneered, as if she thought the Doctor was bluffing.

"Do you love your grandson very much, Aldora?"

"I do," Aldora responded proudly, with a jut of her chin.

"What's his name?"

"Jack."

"Hmm." The Doctor circled past her almost predatorily. "Is it? Because I was under the impression that it was Jacob. Or Joseph. Or Jonathan."

"Well, I —"

"Oh, just shut up," the Doctor growled. "Not only that, you say you're the local nanny. This seems like a very small town from what I've seen, and yet that lady didn't recognise you."

"Maybe she doesn't have kids."

"She would still recognise you as the only nanny in the neighbourhood!" he retorted incredulously, glaring at her in revulsion. It disgusted him how she could just stand there and continue to lie. "She lives down the road from you! And not only that, you can't keep your story straight! I could go on, but I want to know what your role in all this is."

They glared at each other, both too stubborn to move first. They stood like that for a while, surrounded in a room by children, before there was a flash of lightning that illuminated the children's 'blank' faces, and a loud boom of thunder.

Aldora moved first. She sighed and looked up at the ceiling with a cheery smile and fiddled with her knitting needles. "Awfully stormy outside all of a sudden, isn't it?"

The Doctor's patience finally snapped, and he grabbed her by the shoulders, gripping her tightly. "What do you know?!"

"I know that you know too much."

"Do I? I'd say I know too little —" he gasped when Aldora rammed a needle straight through his stomach. The blade glinted in the dim lighting as she pulled it out. There was surprisingly no blood. The Doctor clutched at his abdomen in shock, as his vision swam.

"You know too much, dear," Aldora repeated with a mocking grin. "Yes, you were right. I am a part of all this, and I won't let you stop me."

The Doctor grunted as he collapsed on the floor. He glared at the old woman as his vision blurred. "I will…stop…" he groaned and rolled to the side.

Aldora shifted so that she was in his line of sight again, the grin still intact on her face. She tutted and pouted maliciously. "Are you hurt, my dear? Don't worry, granny will take good care of you now."

* * *

"Can I ask you something?"

It was abrupt. She knew it was abrupt, but she had to ask anyway. It was one of those moments where she felt that pull, that burning desire to have a question answered. She was starting to get those more often. Meera looked up at her, her curious eyes encouraging, so Lizzie took a steadying breath and spewed her question out before she could think of a thousand different ways of why this was a stupid idea and would explode in her face.

"Who are you?"

Meera appeared to be taken aback by her question. "You what?"

God, this was a bad idea. "Not literally, obviously. I know your name but like, who are you? Why aren't you scared?"

There was a challenging glint in Meera's eyes. "Why aren't you?"

"Oh, I am," she admitted. There was a sudden crackle of thunder, and she almost leapt out of her skin at the sound. "See? I'm terrified, but I'd die if people were able to see me as this transparent person, you know? But you, you're not even phased. Random thunderstorm, and you're still sitting there."

"Maybe I am."

"See, I don't think you are." She stood up and ran a hand along a shelf's metal bar. "You're not putting on a brave face or anything to cover up anything you find scary, I think. And usually I'd be scared that I'm wrong cos I don't want to look all high-and-mighty, but there's just…this energy about you, and I just know that you're not all you seem to be."

Meera looked down and traced her finger on the floor. "You're right, I'm not."

In all honesty, Lizzie would have collapsed from relief that she managed to avoid an awkward situation then and there, but Meera didn't seem like that extroverted type, so she waited patiently for her to continue.

"I was, once. Probably. Maybe. Not anymore, though. I can't tell you anything, so don't ask, but I need you to trust me."

"Why?"

"Because we're not alone anymore."

There was another flash of blue electricity, and Lizzie caught a glimpse of a shadow looming in the corner of her eye. She turned, and a figure was towering over her, shrouded in darkness. It was tall and gangly, but somehow intimidating. Lizzie took a step back, and the creature took a step forward. Meera pushed herself to her feet, and crossed her arms.

The creature simply regarded her with a stare — Lizzie knew this by the tilt of its neck — and it simply tossed a newspaper beside their feet. After realising its intent, Lizzie picked it up, and skimmed through it. Her eyes snagged on the image of the pretty Indian girl in the byline image, but her breath caught in her throat when she noticed the name: Meera Amin.

She looked at the other woman in the room, a Chinese woman.

"You lied," the creature hissed, voicing her internal thoughts.

"Yeah, I did," The strange woman replied simply. She was eerily calm.

Lizzie's wrung her hands awkwardly as she felt her confidence slip away. She wasn't as good at reading people as she thought. She had completely read the signals wrong, the lapse when the woman introduced herself, the distracted eye flickers. She had known about the creature. That was why she wasn't afraid. This woman had asked Lizzie to trust her, and yet she had lied about her own identity.

What had she gotten herself into?

 **TO BE CONTINUED**


	6. 504 Forevermore

Prologue

 _To my little sister x_

* * *

" _Name of parent?"_

 _"Aurea Hinata Haruno."_

 _"Do you accept the terms and conditions, Aurea Hinata Haruno?"_

 _A shaky breath, and then, "I do."_

* * *

"Why don't I have a mum and dad?"

It was a simple enough question, and one that must have run through every care-kid's mind, but Lizzie, a little girl so often absorbed in her own thoughts or a good book that was advanced beyond her years, hardly seemed to worry about something so difficult, which is why it came as such a surprise to Maggie.

"Why do you ask?" she asked casually. They were in the garden of the care home, sitting on the rickety old wooden bench. Lizzie had her coat and red wellies on, because it had been raining, and she had wanted to play in the puddles. Maggie had acquiesced, and they had spent a good half-hour having fun before the girl had dropped the bombshell of a question.

Lizzie shrugged noncommittally, but her gaze was noticeably focused on the dirt on her wellies. "Jenny was teaching us about family, and Mei told us everything about her parents."

"And you don't know anything about yours," Maggie surmised knowingly. "Did you feel left out?"

Lizzie nodded hesitantly.

Biting her lip, Maggie decided to broach further. "Do you remember anything about them? At all?"

"Not really," she replied. "What happened to them? Why am I here?"

Maggie sighed, and looked down at the girl. Her gaze was still locked on her boots, and suddenly Maggie remembered how young she really was. How she still had her whole life ahead of her, and how she didn't need the trauma of knowing about her past. Maggie would shield her from the truth for as long as she could, until she was ready to bear the brunt of the truth maturely.

"Come on," Maggie said cheerily. "Let's go get some ice cream."

And Lizzie complied, albeit begrudgingly, because she had been taught to always listen to older people, even if it didn't make her very happy. She grabbed hold of Maggie's hand, squeezed it, hopped off the bench, and followed her as they re-entered the care home.

* * *

"For God's sake, mum, are you hearing yourself?"

"Not so loudly, Mikey, she'll hear you!" Maggie chided him as she rinsed a mug. "Honestly, why are you even here? Shouldn't you be at school?"

"It's bank holiday!" he spluttered incredulously. "That's why every other kid in this place isn't there either!"

They were both in the Dunsworth care home kitchen. Maggie had decided to help Pat out and clean the lunchtime dishes while he prepared everyone for their trip out. Mikey had dropped by out of the blue, attracting the attention of the children, and was currently lounging on a kitchen chair. He was sitting on the opposite end of the chair, his arms and head resting on the back support as an act of rebellion to conformity, much to his mother's chagrin (even though she secretly applauded him).

"Look," he started again. "All I wanna know is — why aren't you telling her?"

"Because she isn't ready!" Maggie replied. "She's still so young, she has her whole life ahead of her! You were devastated when you found out about your father!"

"Even still, it's taught me that keeping a secret like this from her is going to mess her up more!" Mikey argued. "C'mon, mum. You know I'm right."

Maggie sighed resignedly, leaving the mug in the sink and turning the tap off. She waited until a few kids wandered by. "You're right. But I'm also right. She's not like you, Mikey, Lizzie can get terribly sad sometimes," she shifted uncomfortably. "I hate seeing her like that. She deserves better."

"But—"

"Ten," Maggie interrupted. "I'll wait until she's ten years old, and then I'll tell her, okay?"

Mikey returned his head on his arms, a frown marring his usual cheery expression. "Fine," he said begrudgingly. He clearly didn't completely agree with his mother's choice, but respected it nonetheless. He would tell Lizzie about the past himself if he were spiteful, but it wasn't his place to tell the girl, and he didn't know the complete story anyway.

"Now, tell me about Christie. How is she?"

"She moved away ages ago. I'm with Jordan now."

Maggie tutted. "Honestly, dear, sometimes I just can't keep up with you."

The two shared a laugh, happy with the change of conversation. What they didn't realise was that seven-year-old Lizzie Darwin was sitting on the staircase, staring at them through the gaps in the banister, a troubled expression etched on her face.

* * *

 _"I'll shoot, mate!"_

 _"Lizzie! Run!"_

 _"Who are you?"_

 _"Don't touch that!"_

 _"The light," she whispered. "So bright. Like...a glow."_

* * *

Lizzie woke up.

There was something different about this instance, though, because (and she had compiled a list for this):

1) She didn't feel groggy or lightheaded, as she often did when she managed to sleep. Her bleary eyes didn't just flutter open, with her mind already set on a specific task, which varied from an actual idea to trying to figure out a feasible task so she didn't feel annoyed with herself at the end of the day. Instead, it felt as if she were a newborn, staring out at the brand new world at her fingertips, ready for her to explore. It was strange, that because she wasn't on Earth.

Well, that was possibly a lie. She was in a room of some sort. It was the only description she could pin down, and even then it didn't ring true. The place was constantly blurry and shifting, her eyes couldn't focus on a specific distinction. The colours changed before her very eyes, from green, to red, to purple, to a kaleidoscope of colours, to blue. The change was constant.

Anyways, 2) she was standing when she woke up. Lizzie could never stand straight if she was asleep, she would probably somehow crash into a lamp or collapse into a tangled heap.

That was, admittedly, a bit weird.

"Doctor?" she called out into the shifting fog, quietly hoping that he would answer. No such luck. "Anyone?"

"Oh, it's silly, isn't it?" a female voice tutted, startling Lizzie out of her seat. She took a moment to stare at the randomly materialising chair in bewilderment, before focusing on the new company. Her breath hitched in her throat, and she could have sworn her brain stuttered a bit as she comprehended the absurdity of the woman in front of her.

"Maggie?"

Standing before her eyes was her former support worker Maggie Shepherd, except she looked younger. Not exceptionally so, but the difference between the lady before her eyes to the one she had last seen was clear. This Margaret's hair was shorter, like a trendy early 21st Century haircut, and the lines and crow's feet around her face weren't as deep. A Maggie in her youth. Well, that was exaggerating a bit, but she was still recognisable.

She looked around, and realised she wasn't in that weird limbo-state anymore. She was in a medium sized room with creamy white wallpaper, a set of windows to the side, a desk littered by paperwork and an ancient looking computer, and a row of drawers. She recognised it as Pat's office.

"Maggie!" Lizzie tried again, expecting a response. She frowned when she didn't receive one, and her frown only deepened when Maggie walked straight through her. It was an awkward sensation, and she was fairly sure it was just her brain overreaction, but she felt a cold chill wash over her. She rubbed her elbows and turned around to see Maggie floating around the room on a one-woman cleanup operation.

"Oh, you don't have to do that, you know," Pat said as he entered the room. He also looked more youthful. There was a larger crop of hair on his head and his belly wasn't as round, but he still had that same kind smile and the familiar bright twinkle in his eyes. "You're a support worker, not our maid. Makes me feel bad."

"Nonsense," Maggie scoffed, and wave a hand dismissively. "I'm doing it on my own accord. Makes me feel useful. My boy's growing up and is slowly moving on. Can't let myself be left in the dust with nothing to do."

"I get that," Pat nodded as he collapsed in a wheelie chair. He did a 360 spin, rested his elbows on the desk, and smiled up at Maggie. "Marlowe's just left the care home too. Fostered by a nice enough family. She's happy, but I can't help but feel —"

"A little sad," Maggie hummed. "I get that. It's bittersweet."  
"If it's just a stray paper, why are you ogling it like that?" Pat asked, and Lizzie had to take a moment to process the fact that Pat just said 'ogling'.

"Is that him?" Maggie showed Pat the piece of paper. Lizzie tried to look at it, but the words blurred whenever she tried to focus on the content. There was a moment of silence and mutual discomfort, before Maggie pressed on. "Mr Darwin?"

"Yeah, that's him," Pat said in a small voice. Lizzie looked at them curiously. Mr Darwin was clearly her father, but why were they talking about him like that?

"I'd forgotten he looked like that," Maggie admitted, and returned her attention to the slip. "Rather dishy, isn't he?"

Pat raised his hands and shrugged his shoulders. "I wouldn't know."

Lizzie felt a tugging sensation in the back of her mind, urging her to turn. The impulse won out after a brief mental spar, and she turned to find a little girl hidden behind the shadow of the door-frame, peering into the room curiously. She had light, slightly curly and unruly brown hair and big, wide, curious eyes. She was clad in a little yellow coat and red wellies.

Oh. Lizzie felt the pit of her stomach drop slightly. It was her. A little child from her past, almost like a ghost lingering by a grave. It was a bit of a morbid analogy, but it was the best she could come up with.

"Do you think I'm doing the right thing?" Maggie asked, snapping Lizzie out of her thoughts.

No, she thought ruefully. No, you're not.

"Yeah, I think you are," Pat spoke up instead, and Lizzie wanted to bang her head against the door. Instead, her eyes remained on her miniature version, who had a look of dawning horror on her face. Lizzie remembered the events that led to her standing there very well. They had just finished lunch and were going to the bowling alley in town, one of the few times Lizzie felt like a part of a community, and she had toddled over to see what was taking Pat and Maggie so long. She couldn't remember how long she had been standing there or how long it would take her to leave.

"Hm." Maggie didn't sound very convinced, but she opened a drawer and stuck the slip of paper haphazardly into Lizzie's folder regardless. "I just feel like a fraud. A charlatan! I shouldn't be keeping this from her."

"If you don't, no one else will," Pat reminded her. "She's still a child."

"That's what I said," she chuckled.

"Well, then you're right. A child like Lizzie deserves a happy ending, you and I both know that. And this? If you drop this bombshell on her now, she'll never get that."

"I suppose you're right," Maggie sighed. "Anyways, what are we doing standing out here for? Come on, let's go get the herd rounded up for bowling!"

"Enthusiasm! Just what I like to hear!" Pat said brightly as he lumbered out the door with Maggie. Lizzie drifted after them, and cast an eye towards her younger counterpart, who was huddled behind the chair in the corner to avoid detection.

It was almost as if Lizzie could hear the same thoughts as her younger self, despite the fifteen or so year-gap in age. The connection was a strange feeling, and the Lizzies found themselves moving in tandem with each other, their steps synchronised, even if the younger version was unaware of the existence of the older one. The older Lizzie followed herself into the office, and merely watched as her younger self rummaged through the same drawer that Maggie had left open, before pulling out her file and spreading it on the desk. She pulled out the slip pf paper — a picture of a sharp-looking man with twinkling brown eyes and a million-dollar smile — her father. He was holding a small bundle carefully in his arms outside a hospital, and Lizzie couldn't help the wave of nausea and revulsion that overcame her at the sight, but she couldn't bring herself to tear her gaze away.

Luckily, Maggie and Pat strode back into the room at that moment, chatting animatedly about a loser handbag, and they stopped at the sight of the child Lizzie quietly examining the paper.

At first, they didn't say anything, but then Maggie let out a weary sigh, motioned for Pat to take the paper, and gently pried Lizzie away from the picture. "Oh, Elizabeth," she sighed sadly.

She gave the photo to Pat, who deposited it in the file, and watched as Maggie led the little girl to a chair and sat her down. The child swung her feet back and forth quietly, her face impassive. There was no indication of her inner turmoil, nothing to warrant suspicion or suggest the pain and fear Lizzie felt inside. She could've easily gone on her way with a simple reprimand, and carry on with her day.

Of course, that was never going to happen, because Maggie wasn't like most people. She pushed a strand of hair covering little Lizzie's face, and tucked it behind her ear with a fond smile.

Lizzie couldn't help the stray tear that leaked from her eye as a result. She swiped at it, and watched the proceedings, grateful to have Maggie Shepherd in her life. She listened intently, hanging onto the short, simple words that the woman carefully uttered, even though she was technically not supposed to be there.

"Something tells me that you're very sad indeed."

"Something tells me the same thing," a voice echoed from behind her. Lizzie spun around instantly, and she was suddenly back in the strange void. She was surprised, but not concerned. She recognised the voice. She recognised the way the words rolled off their tongue, and the intonations, and the soft baritone voice. A man stood before her, the kind of man with a charismatic face, all schmoozing smiles and flashing pearly white teeth. He was dressed in a smart grey three-piece suit, like she always imagined he would be. In fact, he looked like he always did.

She took a deep breath, to steady herself.

The man smiled endearingly. "Hello, Elizabeth."

"Hi, father," she uttered quietly. "Fancy seeing you here."

 **The Eighth Doctor Adventures**

series 5 - episode 4

forevermore

written by zoe lance

Drew Darwin, a man as posh as his name suggested; combed black hair, crease-free blue shirt and impeccable grey suit. He had little indulgent half-smile perpetually stitched onto his face, as if he were constantly amused by a notion, but didn't wish to enlighten his cohorts. Lizzie reckoned he was the walking definition of meticulous, in every sense of the word. Including control freak.

"You look very nice today," he said in a sort of non-committal tone, as if he was just saying it because it was customary, and not because he had any conviction behind his words.

"Thanks. You too, in a posh kind of way," Lizzie responded just as evasively. "Really dapper, actually."

"Thank you," Drew smiled, and gestured towards a round oak table with two seats opposite each other. "Have a seat."

"I'd rather stand."

"No, no, Eliza, I insist," Drew persisted, and pulled the chair closest to her out as if to prove a point. "Ladies first."

"Thanks," Lizzie muttered. All things considered, she was immensely proud of herself for managing to maintain her relaxed facade, when she was secretly masking her inner turmoil and anxiety. The simple action of sitting down to have chat with her father had been twisted by the entire situation. She was never in any contact with her father, and suddenly he was here, in an ever-changing lucid realm as if it were perfectly normal.

Drew sat in the opposite seat, his smile never wavering. "So, you know who I am."

"Yeah, since I was seven." Lizzie confirmed, before she lapsed back into silence. She nervously drummed her fingers against the oak table to generate some noise to block out the stifling silence without verbal communication.

"Ah." He sniffed unnecessarily, before asking, "Would you like some tea, Eliza?"

"Lizzie," she corrected. "And why?"

"Well, you look thirsty."

"I'm not, really."

He looked at her then, properly looked at her. A frown marred his expression, the kind of frown she expected parents used whenever their children weren't behaving the way they wanted them to. He didn't let it show in his voice, maintaining his calm, clinical tone. "Well, I am."

"Okay," she shrugged, trying to determine what made him tick. What made her father tick. "What is this place anyway?" Lizzie's eyes drifted around the dark realm. It was completely bare, but there were thin trails of sinewy mist roiling across the air, converging onto the table in front of them and producing a fresh cup of tea. "It's so…surreal."

"Who knows," Drew shrugged. "Maybe it's where we all go after death."

Lizzie considered. "That would be nice."

"Maybe you dreamt this all up."

She laughed at the thought. "Who? Me? I don't really think so."

"I dunno. Don't knock it 'til you try it, as they say."

"People don't say that anymore."

"Don't they?" he frowned again. "Ah well. Point stills stands, sweetheart."

"Don't call me sweetheart."

"Why not?" he asked, and this time Lizzie could detect a faint growl. He was starting to slip. "Why won't you let me in, Eliza?"

"It's Lizzie."

He leaned back, and waved his hand dismissively. "Sounds like a YouTuber. Eliza sounds proper."

"Oh, that's good. As long as it's proper." Lizzie scowled, properly miffed. "And how am I not letting you in? We've only been talking for two minutes!"

"It's the way you look at me," Drew tutted. "It's as if you're annoyed with me."

Lizzie was starting to find him a little obnoxious. She had every right to be angry with him. "Don't do that."

He looked at her innocently. "Do what?"

"Try to belittle me. I won't stand for it from you."

"Fine," he shrugged quickly. Lizzie noted that he preferred to avoid confrontation. "Let's talk about something else."

"Okay," she leaned back, and finally grabbed a cup of tea. Drew mirrored her when the mist produced another cup of tea. The white tea cup was porcelain with those embroidered flower patterns that she always saw on TV shows. She tilted the cup slightly, and the warm liquid sloshed to the side. Looking up at Drew, she waited until he took a sip before taking her own.

"Surprised?" Drew smiled when Lizzie pulled the cup from her mouth and stared at it. "Earl Grey."

"My favourite," Lizzie murmured. "How did it do that?"

"No idea," Drew shrugged. "Maybe it just makes your favourite things. Or maybe this is all simulated."

"Yeah," she took another sip. "Maybe."

They sat there in silence for several minutes, simply drinking tea. Lizzie watched him carefully, noticing the way Drew held the cup tightly in his hands before raising it to his lips, as if he were worried about staining his (probably expensive) shirt. He would then move the cup away and swipe at his bottom lip to wipe off any residue.

She crossed her arms and leaned back. "Can I ask you something? I've been meaning to for ages."

"Oh?" his eyes sparkled as he mimicked her posture. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "What's this? A question about how I met your mother? Or maybe it's about your grandparents, or what my job —"

"What are you doing here?" she interrupted abruptly. Hiding how amused she was when his mouth hung open in surprise, Lizzie looked at him pointedly.

He coughed, set his cup down, leaned in, and looked her straight in the eye. "That can go two ways, you know."

"I do."

"Well, then, me first," he smiled that obnoxiously pearly white smile again.."What are you doing here?"

Lizzie slouched in her chair, and considered his question. "Where to begin? I know, let's start…"

* * *

When the Doctor awoke, he was greeted by an overpowering golden glow, and immediately assumed the worst. He was regenerating. It was the only explanation. It was okay, he had lived a good life, but he couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed. He had grown rather attached to this body, all of the experiences he had endured, and all the friends he had made — they would stay with him forever. He let out a contented sigh. He wondered what his next body would look like, how Cioné would react, and whether he would finally become -

A sharp slap was inflicted on his right cheek, and the sound reverberated loudly off the walls. He was, quite frankly, in shock. The golden glow was replaced by a very irate-looking woman, wielding a golden pen light. Oh.

"Well," he managed. "This is all rather embarrassing."

"Chasya, what are you playing at?" a red haired woman popped her head round the door and glared. The same woman, the Doctor realised in his groggy haze, who had led the gaggle that been eyeing him suspiciously on the street.

"I thought he was perving!" Chasya exclaimed indignantly. "He was making weird noises and everything!"

"You're meant to help the injured, not give them a concussion!" the red haired lady yelled.

"I know, I know! I'm sorry!"

"Just patch him up so we can get out of here. The kids are getting restless."

Chasya watched as the woman exited the room, before turning to glare at the Doctor, who was staring back at her in curiosity. "Nice one, perv."

"I'm not a perv," the Doctor replied calmly, his fingers brushing over his stomach with a thoughtful frown. There was no pain and he hadn't regenerated, which was good, but he knew that the stab wound wasn't superficial. It had been fatal, and yet here he was.

"Yeah, sure, that's why you keep touching yourself, is it?" Chasya smacked his arm away. "Cut that out already! I've already patched up the wound."

"Patched me up?" the Doctor's voice rose in surprise. "How'd you manage to do that?"

"None of your business how!" she retorted. "Who the hell are you anyway?"

"I'm the Doctor, who are you?"

"Chasya Tomkins." Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "What kind of name is Doctor?"

"A lovely one," he replied easily with a smile. "Chasya's a lovely name too."

"Oh, cheers."

"How did you do it, then?"

Chasya rolled her eyes. "Oh, just button it, would you? I ain't telling you."

The Doctor scowled somewhat petulantly. "Why not!"

"Cos I ain't giving secrets away to some random perv!"

"You managed to patch up a stab wound perfectly, I just want to know the technique for later use!" the Doctor exclaimed. "And for the last time, I'm not a perv!"

Chasya sighed in exasperation. "Look, we have no idea who you are. For all we know, you could be working for them and trying to attain our secrets, get it?"

"Them? Who's them?" the Doctor's hand traced over his stomach again as he considered his own question. "Aldora Baggot?"

"And co, yeah," she replied. There was a steady rapping on the door that caught their attention; three urgent knocks in quick succession. Chasya stood up as soon as the knocking stopped. "Look, it ain't safe here. If you want some shelter, we can get you that, but if you're just gonna keep yapping on about our techniques, then get lost and stop wasting our time."

"What I want, Miss Tomkins, is to find my friend and maybe get some answers," the Doctor responded as he rose to his feet. He marvelled at the full recovery for a few seconds, and made a mental note to scan himself when he got back to the TARDIS, but right now he had to focus on other things. "Where is Lizzie Darwin?"

Chasya tilted her head in puzzlement. "Lizzie who?"

* * *

Fortuna Gladstone, a woman with a personality as fiery as her bright red hair, surveyed the scene before her with apprehension. They had been on a routine prowl around the streets as they waited for the signal from their captured comrade when they had spotted their target, Aldora Baggot, traipsing down the street with an unknown man. They had regarded them with suspicion, and trailed after them to avoid detection. The pair had entered the old orphanage, so the group was split into two; Fortuna led one team through the front door, while Chasya led the other through the back entrance.

They had converged into the main hallway to find Aldora's accomplice slumped on the floor with a visible knife wound to the stomach, and the blurred children standing motionlessly over him. There had been no sign of their target.

Now, the children were getting restless and starting to file out of the building, as if they were being summoned. They walked silently, monotonously, and in two single files. It was a militaristic display that made Fortuna want to growl in frustration.

At that moment, the Doctor and Chasya barged through the door, embroiled in an argument of some sort. Fortuna stopped them, and crossed her arms.

"Would you two keep it down?" she hissed. "If we disrupt the movement now, we may never find her."

"Who?" the Doctor asked.

"I told you it's none of your business," Chasya exclaimed. She smiled meekly when Fortuna glared at her. "Sorry. But still, point stands, Doctor!"

"A Doctor?" Fortuna said. "Of what?"

"Of everything," replied the Doctor coolly. "Have you seen Lizzie?"

"Who?"

"Presumably not," the Doctor murmured, his mouth a thin line. He glanced around the room. Women of different skin colour, hair colour and height were prowling around the room at different paces, talking quietly to each other or overturning dusty old furniture. However, the thing that caught the Doctor's eye was the fact that they were all dressed in the same black body armour beneath billowing hooded black cloaks. "So," he turned back to Fortuna and Chasya. "If I'm the Doctor, who are you?"

"Fortuna Gladstone," Fortuna replied after a moment's hesitation.

"Well, yes, very nice to meet you, but I meant collectively," the Doctor responded, gesturing broadly across the room. "You're all clearly part of an organisation of some sort. Which one? Have I heard of it?"

"None of your business," Chasya snapped.

"Oh, a secret organisation!" he sounded almost gleeful. "That's okay, I know most of them."

Suddenly, there was a violent rumble that threw the Doctor off his feet and knocked him to the ground. Debris and dust sprinkled down from the ceiling above and the rusty old chandelier above teetered back-and-forth dangerously before coming to a sudden stop. The Doctor pushed himself to his feet, and was rather perplexed to find the women had managed to remain upright.

"Transport rings?" someone murmured. "But I don't feel sick."

"Did anyone hear the storm?" said another.

"Huh. I didn't, actually," Chasya replied.

"They're on the move!" a dark-skinned woman by the entrance yelled. Fortuna and Chasya both pushed past him, and the Doctor took note of the bows slung across their shoulders.

He frowned, reaching into his pocket to produce his sonic screwdriver. "The children? But they're inanimate."

" _Were_ inanimate," Fortuna corrected. "They never stay in one place for more than two days or so. It's like someone wants to keep them hidden. We keep an eye on them at all times."

"Well, how does that work?" the Doctor asked. He was still fumbling inside his pocket. "And has anyone seen my sonic screwdriver?"

"Your what?"

"My tool. Non-lethal — emits sonic waves and vibrations; designed like a torch."

"Vibrations, huh?" Chasya grinned broadly as they neared the back door. Fortuna prised it open with her bow, and she and her team filed out, leaving the Doctor behind with the blonde medic. "I can give you a much better description of your…'tool'."

The Doctor frowned. "Eh?"

"Come on, you can't be that dense if you're such a p—"

"No, no, not that," the Doctor hushed her. He squinted in the bright sunlight. "Where are we?"

The dingy streets that he had landed in were gone, replaced by an expansive city with gleaming, corporate steel-like tower complexes and long stretches of luscious green grass illuminated by the bright orange sun beaming from above. The Doctor whirled on the spot, trying to commit the new area to memory, whilst simultaneously wracking his brain on where he could locate Lizzie.

"Oh, we're on the upper levels," Chasya noted calmly. She looked around with a wrinkled nose, as if disgusted by her surroundings.

"Upper levels?"

"Yup. City's split into two districts — upper and lower. The Upper District — this place — is basically for all the posh and rich, and those that can't afford live here get shoved down below, the Lower District."

The Doctor's eyes widened, aghast at the notion. "Whyever would you do that?"

"We don't make the rules," Fortuna interjected as she strode towards them. "But that doesn't mean we approve or abide by them. Doctor, you're an off-worlder, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am," he nodded. "Me and my friend."

"Lizzie," she presumed. "Look, we'll keep an eye out for her, even tell her to meet you at some specific location if you want."

"You talk as if this is where we part ways, Fortuna," the Doctor noted.

"That's because it is," she responded coolly, unfazed by the scowl that suddenly marred the Doctor's expression. "Look, I don't care if you like that or not, but you managed to get duped and stabbed by our target. You're a liability, and we don't need that. We have a mission to complete and a target to apprehend." She spun on her heels and started to walk in the direction of a gleaming tower. "Chasya, with me."

"I can help," the Doctor called out after them. A frown marred his expression when Fortuna didn't even break stride. Chasya glanced briefly at him before hurrying after the group of women, leaving the Time Lord alone on the street. He looked back at the decrepit building, a hand subconsciously on his stomach, before he whirled around and followed the group.

* * *

"What then?"

Lizzie glared at him. "If you have some patience, you'll find out."

"You know what, how do you even know this?" Drew continued, ignoring her entirely. "You weren't even there."

"How do you look twenty years younger than you should be? In the same suit and haircut from the picture — the only picture — I've ever seen of you?" Lizzie challenged. Drew opened his mouth to retort, considered her question, and, in that typical businessman way, gave her a sniff and an appreciative nod that indicated that he had no answer but would draw out the conversation in a way to lessen the loss. "None of this makes sense, but I remember it. I don't know why, I don't know how, but just…just let me speak."

"Fine." He raised another porcelain cup to his lips, a cup Lizzie hadn't even noticed before. "So, what happened next, Eliza?"

"Lizzie," she corrected. "Well…"

* * *

Fortuna crouched behind the grey slanted wall, hood up, and cautiously poked her head out. The sisterhood had dispersed across the street, hidden behind several buildings and bin chutes to avoid detection. The faceless children were still walking in orderly rows, their feet marching in unison, and their every move closely monitored by several sleek grey machines that reminded Fortuna of toasters with arms: the spin-droids. She raised three fingers, and when she had finished counting down, she leapt from her spot, grabbed an arrow from her quiver and notched it into her bow, before releasing it one fluid motion. The arrow lodged itself straight through the eye of a spin-droid, alerting the others. Before they could react, a flurry of arrows rained down on them and struck them through their circuitry, leaving behind sparking, stuttering lumps of metal and wires.

The children continued their course, oblivious to the action. They were precise in their methods, and none of the youngsters had been hurt in the attack. Fortuna cautiously kicked a spin-droid with the toe of her boot, and sighed in exasperation when Chasya leaped over the bin chute and landed on another with a crunch, a victorious grin on her face.

"Satisfied?" Fortuna asked.

"Oh yeah," Chasya replied, kicking another droid excitedly. "Still got that rush, you know?"

"I wasn't talking to you." She lowered her hood and tilted her head to the side so that she was eyeing the street behind her with her peripheral vision. "But you knew that, didn't you, Doctor?"

The Doctor shuffled out of his hiding spot, a shop sign, soon after. He grimaced at the scene of destruction before him, the devastation left in the wake of the sisterhood. His eyes drifted up, and he looked at Fortuna, her bright red hair shining radiantly in the glow of the orange sunlight, with more interest in his appearance than the carnage at her feet. He couldn't help but liken her to a vengeful Valkyrie.

"You're very observant, Fortuna," he said.

"You sound surprised," she replied.

He eyed the destruction by her feet again. "Perhaps I am."

"What you looking for?" Chasya demanded, her bow and arrow trained on him in an instant.

The Doctor raised his hands diplomatically. "Nothing. Just assessing the situation."

"Impressed?" Fortuna asked.

"Unnerved. And curious," he admitted with a frown. "Can I…?" He stepped closer when Fortuna nodded, and ran a hand along a destroyed Spin-Droid. He tore the head shell apart and fished out a red capsule device. "Ah, I thought so."

"What is it?" Chasya asked suspiciously, her bow still trained on the Time Lord.

"Wireless controller," the Doctor explained, twisting his arm so his palm and the device were visible.

Chasya lowered her bow and peered at it. "That thing?" she replied, unconvinced. "It's tiny!"

"Which means that nobody would notice them."

"Aldora," Fortuna glowered. "It has to be."

"Yes, Miss Baggot." The Doctor looked at the red-haired hunter. "We both seem to be after her, but for different reasons — and clearly on different ends of the violence spectrum. Why? Who exactly are you people?"

"You're persistent, aren't you?" Fortuna mused. She was staring at him now, and he could see the conflict in her eyes. The women were all standing around him now, in a circle that provided fewer means of escape than were previously offered to him. Eventually, she sighed and said, "Fine, but then you have to keep out of our way, and terminate your hunt for Aldora Baggot."

"Of course."

She didn't believe him in the slightest. "Well…where to start? We're—"

"Hold up," Chasya interrupted, and pulled a bleeping device from her cloak pocket. It was a rudimentary communication device, with a glowing red tip and a flip-interface. A blue screen materialised in the air, with a detailed map and a red marker pinpointing a location on the outskirts of the upper level district of New Earth. "We've got a lead on her accomplice. Haruno's just activated the scanner."

"You go," Fortuna replied. "She might need medical assistance. The rest of you go with her, you all know how dangerous the Dealer is."

The Doctor looked at her in bewilderment. "The Dealer? Who's the Dealer?"

"Her accomplice. I'll explain later."

"And the kids?" a dark-skinned woman asked cautiously.

"I'll watch them, Amaya," Fortuna reassured her. "Now go, you guys. Bring her back safe."

"We'll try," Chasya replied, pocketed her device and turned to the four women beside her. "This way, ladies."

In one swift motion, the group of five disappeared, leaving the Doctor alone with the remaining member, Fortuna. He would have jumped to the conclusion that they had merely teleported if he hadn't caught a glimpse of the group of shadows that travelled above his head. He looked up, and caught sight of a billowing black cloak.

He turned to his newest acquaintance with a raised eyebrow. "They jumped from building to building."

"Yes, they did," Fortuna replied coolly.

"Tall, corporate office-like buildings and gleaming yellow skyscrapers," he stressed. A huff of disbelieving laughter left his lips when Fortuna merely shrugged at his observation. "I ask again — who are you?"

* * *

"Well, who were they?" Drew looked at her expectantly. "Out with it!"

"Not just yet," Lizzie responded. "I have a question first."

Drew sighed a patronising sigh, as if she had stained her shirt with tea. "Go on then."

"Okay, so…" Lizzie wondered about how she was going to tackle this. "The other… issue. Do you know what happened to Mum?"

She felt it important, that this should be a conversation they should have. After all, if they had this chance to talk, who better to discuss than one of the few mutual contacts they had ever shared?

"I wonder if it was the lack of a male role-model that led you to be… like you are," Drew mused. It seemed he had very little interest in discussing Lizzie's Mum – except, Lizzie knew that he did. She could see that Drew was well aware the topic was going to be discussed at some point during their conversation, it was only inevitable – he was just playing with her, trying to exercise power over the conversation. And besides. She'd had male role-models.

"Eliza, I can see you working me out. You may have a big heart, but you've also got a big brain. You can read people like a book. And do you know where you got that from? The reason I'm so successful in business is because I can interpret everyone I meet with."

Lizzie knew, therefore, that Drew was aware the conversation was inevitably going to fall to her mother, so she decided that they might as well discuss it sooner rather than later. "Did you ever speak to her again?"

"Never saw her again after I left."

And Drew Darwin seemed rather proud of that fact. Lizzie watched him, and waited for him to elaborate. "Your mother was useless –"

Lizzie had a lot of things to say about her mother, but one thing she would not allow was the hypocrisy of her father. "Don't you dare talk about her like that."

"It might surprise you to know, Eliza, I once loved her. But I left because I realised what she was like. Naïve, clingy. Married me and then frittered my money away, and treated me like dirt because I got annoyed. Lies, lies and lies and lies. She was _baggage_. And I've had a lot of time since to organise my thoughts."

 _Baggage_. Her father living true to his business-like nature, treating everything as a commodity.

Her father gave her a confused look. "For someone in care, you seem to have a lot of sympathy for the woman who landed you there."

"Mum's been dead for years. Liver failure."

The words hung in the air, as Drew absorbed the fact that his former wife, and mother of his daughter, was long dead. Clearly when he'd decided to break off contact, he'd meant that in a more literal way than intended.

"Liver failure?" Drew questioned, clearly deliberately poking around for more information. The way he spoke, however, seemed cold, and clinical. As he said… he'd had a lot of time to get over her not being around, and to organise his thoughts.

"She was an alcoholic."

"See," Drew smirked as his point was proven. "She was a complete waste of –"

"No, it was a problem. An addiction. And it was an addiction that ruined a lot of lives, because that's what alcoholism does, it makes things shit –"  
"Don't swear."

"– "I'll swear as much as I like," because for once, her father was listening to her – and she was angry. "And guess what put her back on the bottle? You. When you walked out. And you know what, Mum got a lot of things very wrong, but you were the one who initiated the complete mess that has been my life so far, and have made me the freak that I am today."

A silence followed, as Drew sat back and took a sip of his Earl Grey. It seemed that she'd made him speechless – a first, perhaps. Lizzie, meanwhile, found herself breathing heavily – she'd never laid into someone the way she'd had a go at him – but she'd had enough. After being treated like property for the entirety of her early life, she decided it was her turn to feel like a person, and not a thing.

It seemed her father had passed some traits onto her – even if they weren't genetic. Because through his idiocy, he had set off a chain of events that had led to Lizzie becoming… Lizzie.

Eventually, Drew dared to speak. "I did love her, you know."

Did you really… Lizzie thought to herself. Because from where she was sat now, it seemed as if her mother had merely been the plaything of a businessman in his early 30s.

"Rebecca had the biggest of hearts," Drew continued, and Lizzie wondered whether she made up for the one her father lacked. This time around, however, it seemed as if Drew was surrendering, and admitting something he had tried to cover up. "She was such an emotionally driven woman – but that meant that above all, she always tried to love. Naïve, yes – she was young. And the lies weren't ever malicious. We wronged each other. It happens in life."

Lizzie was admittedly surprised to see even the tiniest bit of humanity in her father – especially regarding her mother. But Rebecca Darwin, ne. Williams, sounded like a lovely woman, before things went wrong.

"What happened towards the end?" Drew questioned.

Lizzie didn't respond – it wasn't anything she wanted to talk about. At all.

"Lizzie?" her father asked. And he'd used her name.

"She slept most of the day. When she was awake, she was violent. Angry. Used to… hit me, and other stuff. Trap my fingers in doors, by accident, like. I used to care for myself. I was four-years-old, and I was caring for myself. And like, not properly caring. I used to wash my clothes in the kitchen sink with washing-up liquid. Used to put bread in the microwave and heat it to try and make toast. I never realised I had to switch it on – I thought the light heated it up. So I used to just have… bread and butter half the time. I'd take some to Mum, too. Went to bed stupidly late for a kid, I know the script of The Lion King off by heart because we had it on video, and I used to watch it every night over and over, because there was nothing else. Eventually the video broke, and I was distraught – but I didn't cry, because there was nobody to cry to. When that happened, I just sat by the window – we had this… bay window, and I'd sit in it, with the curtains drawn. And I'd feel safe, as I watched the stars. Every night, I'd always check on Mum. Eventually, she stopped ever waking up. And I lived with my mum's dead body for three weeks after that. I kept bringing her food, thinking she was gonna wake up. She never did. And they only found out when a neighbour started to smell her. That's when I was taken into care."

Drew sighed, as if Lizzie had just missed a bus. But Lizzie could see that it had affected him – she could see that Drew Darwin finally understood that he'd done something wrong. But just like his daughter, Drew Darwin was good at hiding his emotions. He was good at being a closed book.

"We made mistakes," Drew admitted. And just like Lizzie, he was too awkward to ever be able to find the words to communicate what he truly felt.  
Although Lizzie doubted that anything he could say would make up for when she'd needed him most.

* * *

"The Hunters of Artemis."

The Doctor pondered on the name briefly, trying to connect it to his previous encounters with organised groups. "Never heard of you," he eventually admitted. "Are you new?"

"Relatively speaking." Fortuna outstretched her arm to stop him from walking further, and motioned towards an alleyway. The Doctor nodded, and they hurried inside seconds before a car hovered by. "Tiny tremors in the ground," she explained for his benefit. "You learn to pick them up. Come on, we can't lose sight of the children."

"It's strange," the Doctor murmured as they crouched out of the alleyway and cautiously followed the children, keeping their heads down. "Do you detect any frequency off of them?"

"No?" Fortuna looked bewildered by his question. "Why?"

"I detected a low-level energy pulse emitted by a perception filter. Something about it doesn't feel right. Something…something doesn't feel right," he mused. "So who exactly are the Hunters of Artemis? You're clearly a sisterhood named after the Greek Goddess Artemis, ruler of the Hunt and the natural personally, who are you? What makes you tick? Your group is small, so you must all have something in common."

"Down!" Fortuna hissed, and they ducked behind a building as a Spin-Droid ambled past obliviously. They waited for a few minutes, before resuming their chase. "Yes, we all have something in common."

"What's that?"

"I'll explain later."

The children rounded a right corner, but Fortuna grabbed the Doctor by the sleeve of his jacket and pulled him towards a large red-brick building in the opposite direction. Slinging the bow over her shoulder again, she clambered up the ladder, closely followed by the Doctor.

"We've all had similar experiences," she said cryptically, and launched herself off the last rung to somersault onto the roof with flourish. Apparently the Hunters had a penchant for glamour. "We bonded over it. Became sisters."

"Is there anybody in charge?" the Doctor grunted, heaving himself onto the roof a little more slowly. "A common leader?"

"No," Fortuna replied sharply. "We are not leaders and subordinates, Doctor, we're a sisterhood for a reason. We're all equal."

The Doctor looked chastised. "Of course. I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well, no harm done," she replied, but the Doctor could detect the underlying grudge in her tone. They lapsed into silence for a few minutes, simply hopping from roof to roof companionably. Fortuna seemed to find it easier than the Doctor. She practically glided in the air, like a child high up in the air on a swing or in a bouncy castle, relishing those brief, precious intervals of escape before reality sent them crashing back to monotony.

They continued their silent routine, sometimes ducking to avoid detection from passing Spin-Droids, until the children stopped. They were stood outside the largest building in New Earth, a sleek, revolutionary establishment that was possibly the pinnacle of modern architecture. Gunmetal in colour, solar-panelled windows gleamed brightly in the orange sunset. The windows were an indication of an individual bedside window, as the Doctor glimpsed rows upon rows of king sized beds all placed adjacent a holographic fireplace. The building was split into three sections: the main building itself standing proudly like a citadel, a smaller warehouse of some sort, and what appeared to be an open garden sealed off by a giant skylight and solar-glass. It dawned on the Doctor that the third building was a greenhouse of some sort, but the fauna growing inside was unfamiliar to him.

"Why here?" the red-haired hunter muttered under her breath. "Why bring us here?"

"What's wrong?" the Doctor asked. "What is it?"

Fortuna drew in a shaky breath, fiddled with her bowstring, and turned to him morosely. "New Earth Orphanage." She grabbed her bow and nocked an arrow with some rope at the end. She drew the bowstring, aimed at a window opposite them, and released it. The arrow whistled through the air and pierced the glass, securing itself in the metal cover of the lift shaft. She tested the taut rope, before turning to the impressed Doctor. "Come on. This must be the end of the road."

* * *

"Do you know what I've realised?" Drew asked tentatively. There was external calmness that he was emitting, possibly to feel in control with his emotions, but Lizzie could see them warring in his expression. He trying to grapple with the new information but was having trouble truly expressing it into manageable thoughts and words. Lizzie was well acquainted with that jumble of emotions. "You've been mentioned in this story, but you haven't actually told me how you got here."

"I suppose this is the right point in the story." Lizzie responded.

"And that girl, Meera."

"She wasn't a girl, she was a woman."

Drew shrugged. "There aren't any real real women, everybody knows that. Little girls stay little girls all their life. All sugar and spice. Why haven't you mentioned her until now?"

"Well, you can go off someone if they've lied about their identity."

"You're backing up my point, Elizabeth," Drew grinned. Lizzie was actually, physically repulsed by the display. After everything she had told him, everything about her life and her mother, and he was back to his fragile persona in five minutes.

"Shut up." She growled. "Just shut up."

"Why? She your girl…friend? God, I can't even say it. If that doesn't show how wrong it is, I don't know what does." He laughed awkwardly at his horrible joke. Lizzie was too emotionally drained to launch a verbal assault, but she felt a little satisfaction as she watched his laughter die in his throat.

"Do you want to hear the story or not?"

"I do," he responded.

"Well then." Lizzie looked down at the swirling mist again, concentrated, and a smooth spherical orb dropped into her hands. "I suppose it all has to do with this."

"What is it?"

"I don't know, actually. But it was instrumental." She looked at the orb thoughtfully, admiring the beauty. Eventually, she put it down, tucked her chair in, and crossed her arms on the table. Drew mirrored her position, engaged and ready to listen. "After the Dealer — that's the accomplice they were on about, I think — after he showed up, he didn't exactly sit down and talk to us."

* * *

The Dealer lunged for them immediately with a frustrated roar. 'Meera' dove to the left, narrowly avoiding his claws. The creature tried again, launching itself at the woman and swiping at her with his claws repeatedly. Lizzie watched in astonishment as the woman ducked and weaved around the attacks elegantly. She made it look like a dance, with twirls and lunges and near-misses.

"Your commitment to perfection's made you redundant," 'Meera' said smugly.

Her astonishment morphed into mortification when she realised that the creature was luring the other woman into a corner of the room. She opened her mouth to warn her, but the Dealer, with surprising agility, grabbed her by the throat and forcefully slammed her into the wall.

"That may be so," the creature hissed while Meera gasped for air. "But I know how to exploit your flaws as well, Jada Haruno."

"D — don't…" Meera, or Jada, spluttered helplessly.

The Dealer's grip on her throat tightened. He leaned forward menacingly. "Don't what?"

Lizzie looked around the room helplessly for a weapon or a distraction. The newspaper wouldn't do anything but irritate him, and the boxes were completely empty and weightless, and the shelves were too heavy for her to move.

Jada, on the other hand, glared up at the Dealer defiantly. "Don't…use…my name like we're old friends."

At that precise moment, as if it were all planned, the room burst into an explosion of activity. Lizzie was startled when the wall at the far end of the room cracked open, and plaster and debris showered her. A group of five women rushed in, launching a tirade of arrows at the grey figure. With its free left hand, the Dealer swiped at the oncoming projectiles, splitting them in half with its talons. A single arrow, however, whistled past his right shoulder and embedded itself in the back of his hand. Lizzie winced at the roar of pain reverberating around the room, while the cloaked women watched it mutely. The arm wrapped around Jada's throat slacked, and she slumped to the floor, still gasping for air. A woman with blonde hair was by her side in an instant.

"You okay?" the blonde woman asked, swatting Jada's hand away to examine her throat.

"I'll be fine." Jada assured her.

"But let me —"

"Chasya, I'll be fine!" She gestured towards Lizzie. "Just get her out of here. She's a civilian, she's done nothing wrong."

"You have all committed treason," the Dealer roared.

"Oh, back again, are you?" Chasya asked snidely. She rose to her feet and nocked an arrow, adopting an open stance. "I'll shoot, mate!"

The cloaked women all raised their weapons at the target as well. Lizzie watched them, slightly awed and disoriented by the situation.

"Who are you?" she asked before she could stop herself. A dark-skinned woman glanced at her through the corner of her eye.

"Ma'am, you should leave. Now."

"Lizzie!" Jada staggered to her feet. "Run! This isn't your fight!"

Without warning, the Dealer rammed his arm into Jada and Chasya's stomachs, knocking the wind out of them and sending them crashing into a shelf. The women attacked him immediately, submerging him in a flurry of arrows. Lizzie turned to run, to find the Doctor, and hopefully find a way to stop the madness after doing so, when a smooth grey orb rolled into her foot.

"Don't touch that!" the creature roared. Lizzie looked at him, then back at the orb and quickly scooped it into her arms. If the Dealer wanted it, it was probably instrumental to whatever was going on.

"No!" Jada exclaimed. "Don't touch that!"

Lizzie was about to respond when a bright flash of white light caught her attention. She looked, and there was another burst on the edge of her vision. A white wispy trail floated towards her and enraptured her, leaving her breathless. Her heart hammered in her chest and her palms were sweaty but she couldn't help but stare, transfixed. It was so beautiful.

"The light," she whispered. "So bright. Like...a glow."

Her vision swam, but the light kept her company.

"Lizzie?"

The alarm rose an octave, almost drowning out the shouts.

"Lizzie."

The sound of her own ragged breathing drowned out every other noise. The sound that she had been acquainted with all her life. It was peaceful.

"Lizzie!"

Everything faded to black.

* * *

"And that's how I got here," Lizzie concluded. "That's my story. Your turn."

Drew was remarkably quiet. It was a good look on him, Lizzie thought, better than all the snide retorts. He drummed his fingers on the table thoughtfully, and took another sip of his Earl Grey tea.

"Well?"

"It's quite a story," he said at last. "Did you exaggerate it?"

"No!" Lizzie huffed indignantly, before second-guessing herself. "At least…I don't think I did. The details are a bit fuzzy, but that's how I picture it."

He shrugged. It clearly didn't make a difference to him. "You don't look like you're trying to remember it properly."

"Yeah, well, I'd rather not be an open book, thanks," Lizzie bit back. The sparkle dulled in his eyes and he leaned back again, clearly not appreciating her attitude. "Your turn."

"I don't know," Drew replied easily. "Weird, isn't it?"

"Maybe," Lizzie conceded. "But I prefer another term."

"What's that, then?"

"Convenient."

* * *

After some insistence, Fortuna relented and let the Doctor shimmy across the rope first. He was quite proud when he realised that he had only stumbled twice along the way. He tumbled through the window ungracefully and dusted himself off in slight embarrassment. Fortuna entered soon after, untied the rope, dropped it, and returned the arrow to her quiver. During this time, the Doctor was surveying the room. The wallpaper was grey and peeling; the king-sized bed was still beside the holographic fireplace, but there was also a beside table with a defunct digital clock and, surprisingly, a drawing pad. The room was small and crammed with toys and games that had gathered dust. The elevator shaft acted as a makeshift door, and he could see a scanner on the side.

There was no discernible pattern or order to the room — everything was placed in a haphazard heap and, the most important detail of all, was that Aldora Baggot was sat in the centre of the room with two cups, a teapot and her knitting needles.

"We should be safe in here for a bi —" Fortuna trailed off when she turned around, staring at the woman in surprise.

Aldora didn't even look surprised. "Oh, hello, Joseph." She smiled mockingly at the Doctor's stormy expression. "Now, isn't this nice?"

Fortuna had an arrow aimed at her skull in an instant, her fingers hanging precariously off the drawstring.

Aldora regarded her with a smug smile. "Oh, you do like loitering with the ruffians, don't you, my dear?"

"Shut up, you bitch," Fortuna hissed, edging closer angrily.

Aldora huffed at her choice of language. "Now, my dear, that is not way to speak to your elders."

"I should have killed you in the streets."

"Well, you always were capricious," Aldora chuckled. "I think you got that from me."

The Doctor's head snapped up in interest, his mind racing with the implications of that sentence. He glanced between the two women, but he couldn't find any bearing resemblance. He could just let Fortuna kill her, let it all be over with, but he could never bring himself to do it, and he needed answers.

"Now, go play outside," Aldora said dismissively, as if she had read the Doctor's thoughts. "The grownups have a lot to discuss."

To the Doctor's surprise, Fortuna acquiesced. She put away her bow and arrow, and vanished through the open window, crunching the glass scattered across the floor as she went. He turned to Baggot, who didn't seem surprised in the slightest. She motioned towards the seat with her eyes and returned to fiddling with her knitting needles. He stood there for a few seconds, casting one last furtive glance around the room for any weapons she could attack him with. Satisfied that there was nothing within her reaching distance, he sat down in the small kid chair opposite her, and ran a finger around the rim of the tea cup.

"I see you've got past my defences."

"Yes," he replied. "You don't sound very surprised."

"Of course not." She looked at him as if he were stupid. "I couldn't have ordered them to open fire on you, that would kill you. Who would I talk to then?"

"Who indeed," he mused, refocusing on the tea cup. "I have conversed with some of the most malign and dangerous forces in the universe," he said as a way of starting conversation. "But none of them have offered me a cup of tea."

Aldora chuckled. It sounded more like a croak. "Well, I do pride myself on my people skills." She set her cup down and took a sip of her tea. "Besides, I do have manners, you know."

"Yes, that's exactly why you stabbed me," he scowled bitterly.

"Oh, now don't be sulky," Aldora tutted. "Look at you, you're fine and dandy. I did no damage, no damage at all."

"Do you honestly believe that?"

Aldora shrugged. "Doesn't matter. I see you've acquainted yourself with Fortuna. She always was the lucky one, it was in the guidelines. Dreadful glare, though. I didn't program that into her."

"What do you mean 'program'? You can't program something into someone."

"Can't you?" she challenged.

"No," he replied firmly. "Condition them, yes, but that's not the same thing."

"Oh, Doctor," she sighed patronisingly. "Does it hurt?"

"No, it's all better —"

"I didn't mean the stab wound," she interrupted. "What I mean to ask is — well, does it hurt to be wrong all the time?"

The Doctor said nothing, irritating her even more.

"Well?"

"I don't need to answer that. I'm not wrong."

In a rather dramatic display, Aldora rolled her eyes and huffed. "Foreigners." She set her cup down and stared at him. "Do you really have no idea who I am?"

"No."

"You're not a member of the Galactic Police? A higher order?"

"I am my own order," he replied coolly. "I don't need my choices governed by others."

"Ah!" she wagged a finger at him. "See, now that's where you're wrong. Everybody has a higher order governing them, Doctor, everyone! Doesn't matter if it's you, me, Fortuna or one of the children —"

"Yes, speaking of the children, what have you done to them?"

"I'm speaking," she said crossly.

"And I'm done listening," the Doctor retorted. "Answer my question, Aldora. I have a lot of things to do."

She looked at him innocently. "What question?"

"See, now you're just being spiteful." The Doctor stood from his chair and glared down at her. Aldora glared back, not willing to back down. "Answer my question."

"Fine," she spat. "Sit back down first."

The Doctor slumped back in the chair, and put his boots up on the table.

"Honestly, you have the most terrible table manners," Aldora winced.

"I know, you should see my bedside manners," he nodded in agreement, picking up the tea cup. "Now, the children."

She tightened the shawl around her shoulders absentmindedly, her eyes glassy and far away, as if she were reminiscing. "They're my profit."

Just like that, the cup fell out of the Doctor's hands and clattered onto the ground below, the cup shattering into tiny fragmented pieces and the hot liquid oozing onto the dull brown carpet. He looked at her in horror. "What did you say?"

"I have to make money somehow," she shrugged as if she saw no problem in her own words.

"No, no, no, stop. Look at me. Do you have any idea how disgusting and horrific you sound?"

"They're not dead, so it's not a problem!"

"That's not the point, you are using them for your own means. Children are not a means to an end."

"Honestly, truth be told, I think you're just overreacting."

"Am I now?"

"Well, how else would I afford somewhere as lavish as this building?"

"What, you own this orphanage?" the Doctor asked. "Better yet, you live in it?"

"Yes!" She laughed at him as if he were a fool. "This used to be my bedroom, specifically designed to match the one in my old living quarters. Deary me, Doctor, you didn't actually think I lived in that dingy little cottage on that scruffy little street, did you?"

"Well, of course you didn't. A cottage that small would never be able to house you and your 'Joseph', whom I suspect has been a fabricated lie all along."

"Finally, he gets it."

"I don't understand, what do brainwashed children do for you?" A horrific thought dawned on him and he looked at her in disgust. "Do you —?"

"Heavens, no, nothing so vulgar!" Aldora shuddered at the thought. "I'm not a complete monster."

"Then what do you do?"

"I'm a business woman, Doctor, but I wasn't always like this. I once lived in the slums below, the ghettos. My dad overworked himself trying to make enough for us to go by in that dirty grocery stall. It was revolting."

"Well, I'm sorry to hear that, but that doesn't justify —"

"I haven't finished," she growled. "I always wanted to mingle with the celebrities up here. The bigwigs, and I did. I finally got my change, but it took me so long. Oh, so long. I realised that I could help people, parents in particular. Give them what they always wanted."

"What's that?"

"Their children."

"I'm sorry?"

"Parents want children," Aldora clarified. "But not just any children. Perfect children. Genius, athletic, strong, gentle, and with an iron core; they want them to look beautiful — glamorous, even — with a nice wife or husband on their arm. Keep the business running, look after the kids, be the perfect pillar of society"

"It's impossible," the Doctor said confidently.

"Oh, yes it was. Of course it was. Even after everything the human race endured, we couldn't evolve properly."

"Properly?" the Doctor repeated.

"Yes! Look at them. All those hybrids running away. It's like a…meme," she wrinkled her nose. "Horrible word. Nothing's proper anymore."

"Proper or not, you can't just force all these expectations onto a single person, it's asking too much. You'd overwork them. It is not something humanity, or any species, can achieve. Not even the Cybermen. It's unattainable."

She pointed a needle at him. "And yes it's not. I've achieved it."

"How?"

"You've seen it."

"Have I?" He paused, and considered her statement. Suddenly, everything clicked into place. "The Hunters of Artemis."

"Exactly. They're not the perfect ones, mind you. Far too aggressive to be suitable mates. It's a shame, honestly. A few go wrong every so often that just can't be covered up, so I just abandon them. But the rest, you must have seen them. Whizzing about in their posh cars with their families and their jobs. Oh, they make mummy proud."

"Is everyone on New Earth manufactured, or is it just this city?"

"No, no, just a select few." Aldora giggled to herself. "Well, that's how it was at first. We were a new business, you see, just finding our feet. There were only a select few, but then word got around of our success rates, and people came crawling. Gave us all the money," she clapped her hands greedily. "Oh, I was rich by the next five years."

"Do you enjoy taking away free will?" the Doctor asked seriously. "I knew someone like you once. You're almost just as bad."

"What good is free will in a world like this?" Aldora scoffed. "Do you know what the problem with the universe is, Doctor? It's too soft. Everybody has all these big ideas they want to put into motion, but they always fall flat. The children are the worst of the lot. Look at them, with all their swagger and confidence. They're not being raised proper. They should be disciplined."

"Punished for having a different viewpoint, you mean?"

Aldora raised her hands and shrugged. "What difference does it make? We live in a cold, terrible place."

"Because people like you make it so."

"We make the universe better," she insisted.

"You slowly choke the universe and all of its resources in the name of profit," the Doctor spat. "Children's imaginations should be nurtured, and cared for, not shunned and scoffed at. They can help make the universe a better place, they revolutionise it, but you wouldn't understand that, would you? With all your conformity and regulations. You're just looking for a quick buck and a territory to monopolise."

"But it's like Ms Cullengate always says, the universe is stunted beyond repair. There's nothing we can do ‒"

"There's always something we can do ‒" the Doctor interjected.

"We have to fight for ourselves before it's too late."

"No, we have to work together before it's too late."

"You're not a messiah."

"And you're not a God." She was seething now. "You're just a stupid little man with a bleeding heart, don't you come here and tell me how to survive. A man like you would never understand, Doctor. You've probably never had a steady job in your life."

The Doctor leaned close. "And because of you, those children will never get to experience not having a steady job. They'll just follow instructions instilled into them, they'll never get to experience the joys. They're just microcosms, there is so much to see, to do, and they never will. They'll die unsatisfied because of you."

Aldora barely spared him a glance. "What do you know about my creations?"

"I know that I'm going to save them," he vowed. "I'll stop you and this senseless destruction of their identities and then, I'm going to lock you away so you can never hurt anyone again."

She smiled then, a challenging gleam in her eye. Aldora loved a challenge. "Well, we'll just see if you can uphold that promise then, won't we?"

"Doctor!" Fortuna's head appeared through the broken window. "Something's happening in the warehouse!"

The Doctor's eyes darkened as he stared into Aldora's very soul, trying to find a glimmer of redemption, but all he could see was an old woman too far gone because of her belief in a destructive rhetoric. He pushed away from her, and moved towards the window.

"I didn't just wake up like this, you know," Aldora called after him."I've had to adapt. Years of being trapped in the crossfire because of rules set in stone, because some idiot freed the people in the slums after a contagion broke out and decimated the upper level population. They set out rules, you know, the first ones that made it up, fancied themselves to be the chosen ones. Anyone who didn't adhere, they were forcefully sent to the slums. My family was one of those. I lived in poverty and now look at me. I'm on the winning side."

He didn't want to listen to her prattling any longer. "Where's my sonic screwdriver?"

"Gave it to the Dealer, my accomplice," she replied. "He does love phallic instruments."

"This is the end for you, Aldora," the Doctor said quietly, his back turned to her. "I'm ending this, here and now. The end of the road."

"We'll see, Doctor," she murmured. He jumped out the window after that, but she was aware of the crushing inevitability of his words. He most certainly survived. He had the Hunters with him, but he didn't know the full truth, yet. She sighed happily, returned to her cup of tea, and relaxed in her chair. "We'll see."

* * *

"You left us."

It was direct, and didn't leave any room for his interjections. Lizzie watched with slight satisfaction when a small trickle of tea dripped off Drew's lip when she had made her statement, splashing onto his blue shirt and leaving a brown stain as an afterthought.

She leaned closer and continued. "You left your family."

"Yes, I did," he replied evenly, and slowly set his porcelain cup down. Lizzie's eyes followed the movement, and she allowed herself a brief interlude of surprise when the cup disappeared in a trail of white smoke as soon as it hit the surface of the table, before regaining her composure and continuing with her barrage of questions.

"Why? Do you know, or did you conveniently forget that as well?"

"I don't appreciate your tone," he responded smoothly, but Lizzie could read him like a book. The twitch of his lips, the flash of malice in his eyes — they all pointed towards his irritation.

"Well, I'm sorry for that — well, I'm not, actually. I have a right to know. You left — no, you abandoned us. Why?"

"Why do you look at girls that way?" Drew retorted.

Lizzie scowled. "No, you don't get to change the subject —"

"— Like you look at boys?" he continued, undeterred. "Like you should only look at boys?"

Lizzie said at him incredulously. "Like I should only look at boys? God, do you ever hear yourself?"

"Well, all I'm saying is that I think normally —"

"I am not you!" Lizzie snapped. She didn't mean to, but she did. Maybe this was good,to unleash the pent up anger. She didn't need to justify herself at all. He was the one beating around the bush, but….

Maybe it was good to lay down the ground rules.

"I don't think like most people do, I think about all these different…possibilities in my head. I like different things, I like girls and boys romantically and I will not have you swan in here and tell me that it makes me abnormal or weird or a freak. I'm different, okay? So what? It doesn't make me any less a person!"

"I told you before, I do not appreciate your tone," Drew interrupted calmly.

Lizzie huffed in frustration and put her head in her hands, taking a few minutes to collect her thoughts, before looking back up at him again. "And I told you that I don't care. I don't, okay? All I want, all I've ever wanted, was to know why you left us. You didn't even know about mum! Your wife. The one you made vows to. Do you remember that or was that memory conveniently misplaced as well?"

"Elizabeth…"

"Oh, so I'm Elizabeth now, am I? It's Lizzie. I haven't been Elizabeth since I was 10."

"Why?" Drew asked.

"Don't change the subject."

"You found out something, didn't you?" he continued regardless. "Something about us that made you want to drop the name." He smiled when Lizzie shuffled uncomfortably. "I'm right, aren't I? Go on then, tell me, what did you find out?"

"Something Maggie told me."

"Oh?" He was clearly waiting for her to elaborate.

"About you," she said eventually. "She told me something about you."

"What did she say?"

"Nothing much. She sat me down in the park on a hot day, with chocolate chip ice creams, and she said one sentence. Just one. I didn't know what it meant, at first. But as I grew, I realised what she meant." She laughed. "Even then, she shielded me from the full pain until I was old enough to understand."

"What did she say?" Drew repeated a little more angrily. Clearly he didn't like being out of the loop. He wanted to remain in control, especially in front of women.

Lizzie took a deep breath. "She said — and this has stuck with me all my life — she said 'he's a bloody Conservative, love.'" She smiled grimly at him. "Pretty self-explanatory."

Drew sighed, and leaned back in his chair.

"Am I wrong?"

"No, I can tell you're not."

"Well, could you at least fill in some of the blanks cos I'm a little rough around the edges."

Drew shrugged. "It doesn't matter."

"Of course it matters," Lizzie said incredulously. "How could it not? Was it a job?"

"Yes."

"A well-paying one?"

He nodded. Lizzie didn't know how he could just sit there.

"A well-paying job that meant you had to abandon your wife and child?"

"That was —"

"Don't say it."

"It was of my —"

"Shut up."

"— my own volition!" he finished with a yell. His face was starting to redden. "You were holding me back."

"Don't you dare say that. Don't you dare. We were your family, and you cut ties because of your ambition? You're sick."

"I'm practical."

Lizzie reached over and threw his cup into the blank abyss. She started to regret it, wishing she had spilled the Earl Grey all over his face. "Just don't speak, okay? Just be quiet, even for a little bit."

He obeyed, and the two lapsed into silence. Lizzie sighed, wondering how much more of this hell she would be able to take.

* * *

"What did you see?" the Doctor asked as soon as they swung off the building. It was a miracle that he hadn't broken both of their legs. He wasn't sure how durable the Hunters were with their enhancements quite yet.

"Not precisely sure," Fortuna replied, snapping the Doctor out of his ruminations. "There was this giant pillar of white light. Almost blinded me for a second, but then it was gone."

They hurried over to the warehouse doors, and Fortuna used her bow to prise them open enough for them to squeeze through. The warehouse wasn't particularly impressive. It was a rustic building devoid of any discernible features. There were dull monotonous grey walls and a cold metal floor. Rows upon rows of metal shelves lined the walls as they advanced into the building. Their trek led them to a spiral staircase at the end of the corridor and, to their surprise, they could hear arguing downstairs.

 _"Hold still!"_

 _"Oh, push off, I told you I'm fine."_

 _"Oh yeah, that bloody great bruise on your neck is just a tattoo."_

 _"Oh, shut up, Chasya."_

Fortuna sighed in exasperation. "Oh, here we go. They've kicked off now. Come on, before they throttle each other."

The Doctor followed her down the staircase. "Are they always like this?"

"Yes. We're a sisterhood in all respects."

There was a double set of red sliding doors at the foot of the staircase. The Doctor pushed one to the side and poked his head through.  
"Hello, everyone. I'm the Doctor."

Chasya rolled her eyes. There was a purple bruise on her cheek and her arm had been bandaged. She was crouched beside a woman unfamiliar to the Doctor. "Oh great, it's you."

There was no bite in her tone, he noticed as he walked in. His eyes immediately fixated on the crumbling wall on the far side of the room "Can't get rid of me that easily. And it seems you can't get rid of wanton destruction. What happened here, ladies?"

"Er, it wasn't our fault, thank you very much. Blame that thing over there," she gestured towards a tall grey humanoid figure wrapped in the corner of the room, with two Hunters guarding him. "Gave us a proper run for our money, but it was good to finally deck him."

"I'm sure," he drawled, crouching down next to the Chinese woman next to the blonde. "Hello, what's your name?"

The woman regarded him suspiciously. "Meera Amin."

The Doctor's smile thinned. "No, you're not."

"What?"

"I know what Meera Amin looks like, I've seen a picture of her. You're not her. So don't insult my intelligence, and tell me who you are."

The woman didn't look very threatened. "Jada."

"It's true," Chasya supplied. "Not that's it's any of your business."

"Nice to meet you, Jada, I'm the Doctor. Have you got a surname?"

"What's it to you?" she asked defensively. The Doctor raised his hands to placate her.

"Just curious, that's all," he noticed her white dress, a stark contrast to the Hunters body armour. She was probably the most injured. He turned to the attacker curiously. "Who's that then?"

"The Dealer, one of the monsters responsible for the disappearances," Jada shuffled forward, but Chasya pulled her back again.

"Stop moving!"

"I'm just trying to get my Holo-Caster!"

The Doctor eyed the small metal orb in the corner of the room. He ambled towards it. "This thing?"

"Don't touch it!" She snapped scathingly, hurrying over and grabbing it. "Seriously, don't."

"Okay, okay. I'm not touching it, see?" He took a step back to further his point. "Can I at least ask what it is?"

Jada softened, and glanced at the device nervously. "I don't actually know, but I've had it all my life. Don't know why I keep it with me."

"We all have one," Fortuna, who was helping Chasya tend to two Hunters, supplied. "Not all the same colours, but the same shape. They all belonged to our parents."

"Well, can I see one?" the Doctor asked hopefully.

It was Chasya who spoke. "That's a no-go. They seemed to be keyed to us specifically. Anybody who doesn't…well, they…"

"What?"

"We don't know. It looks like teleportation, but we're not sure where they go," Jada said bluntly.

He looked thoughtful "Interesting. But we can't dwell on that for now. I'm sure we'll figure it out later, but for now, we have to stop Aldora."

"You're after her too, are you?"

"Can we do this elsewhere?" Fortuna asked them. "This isn't a secure area and Spin-Droids will be here at any moment. We need to go."

"Agreed," Jada nodded. "Let's go, ladies. You too, Doctor."

* * *

They didn't go very far. The Hunters of Artemis led the Doctor to a secure stronghold near the warehouse. Chasya explained that they had marked it during a previous excursion for practical reasons. A small disused office building that provided a view of Aldora's orphanage.

The Doctor was sat on a spinning chair, aimlessly spinning as he formulated a plan. He juggled the sonic in his hands, having pilfered it off the deceased Dealer. He wasn't quite sure what species it was.

Chasya was patching people up and Fortuna was pacing up and down on the upper floor trying to come up with her own plan. His feet twitched from the lack of activity. He needed to be out there. He needed to find and help Lizzie. He needed to help the children.

He looked up at the sound of a small cough. Jada was stood by the door with an enigmatic expression on her face. The Doctor almost dared to call it a smile, but there was a slight crease in her eyebrow that indicated frustration. "You okay?" she asked him, and it sounded genuine.

"I'm fine," he replied. "Are you?"

"Yeah. A bit bruised but I'll live."

"That's good." He nodded and they lapsed back into an awkward silence. He really did need to find his lost charisma again. He decided to go for the small talk approach, try to glean more information. "Have you been with the Hunters long?"

"Ooh, about…nine years. I'm the youngest. They found me while I was camped out in an old market stall."

"Hmm."

"We'll find her, you know," Jada assured him. "Your friend, Lizzie. She's definitely not dead. I can't explain it but I…I just sense her."

"I hope you're right," he sighed. "Why did you take the identity of Meera Amin?"

"To help her," Jada replied "Wanted a normal birth, you know? But her husband wasn't having it, wanted a proper son like his friend. Made a deal behind her back. She was scared half to death, came to us for help. So I took her place."

"That's very nice."

Jada shrugged. "It was an opportunity to get to know more." She tilted her head and looked at him. "What are you thinking?"

He spun his chair until he was looking out the window. "We have to help them," the Doctor declared. When he turned around, he saw Jada shaking her head, her face a grim picture.

"No way." She spoke bluntly, and then made an effort to move the conversation on. "We need –"

"Jada, we can't just leave them."

Jada sighed, because the Doctor was apparently a persistent idiot who clearly wasn't going to give up without a fight. What he didn't realise, was that she wasn't going to give up without a fight either. "Watch me."

The Doctor stared at her, bemusement etched across his face. He couldn't understand why an organisation so intrigued by the children would be so against helping them. It seemed like the obvious solution – to be better than Aldora, to do something good. They were children – they should be loved. "Why are you being so cold, Jada? Do the right thing."

That really got on her nerves. "Don't talk to me about what's right and wrong here, you know nothing about me." Being judged by someone who knew nothing about her was not exactly the way to her heart. And so, Jada walked away from him, not caring what the Doctor thought of her. Others' opinions of her did not matter.

On second thoughts, before she got far away from him, Jada turned again. She was going to tell the Doctor – and she was going to make him feel guilty about it.  
"Imagine you were a child and you were scared."

"I have been the scared child, Jada –"

Jada continued, even through her confusion at what the Doctor had said. "And then your tormenter that brought about the fear in the first place came back?"  
"I would forgive them, Jada. I would do it out of nothing but love."

Well… Jada decided. The Doctor wasn't everyone. And he definitely wasn't her. "We can't all be as 'holier-than-thou' as you, and be so forgiving." It was an attitude that irritated her – everyone's opinion that you should always forgive. Half of those people didn't have anything huge to forgive, ever. They would never know what it was truly like.

"I understand, Jada. I can see that this is hard for you –"

"What do you know about it? That stupid, stupid child, tried to get into my house every night! Do you know how that… ruined me? How something like that can change a person?"

"Of course I can. Because it's happened to me." And the Doctor thought of Lizzie, and how he needed her to be safe. Childhood traumas… perhaps his loneliness was why he always needed so much company.

"Then don't bully me for being cold."

The Doctor shut up, then, and watched Jada. He regretted everything he'd said – after all, he knew how she felt. He had been cruel to her, misunderstanding the fact that everyone was cold to a degree – and there was often something behind it.

"And besides," Jada said. "What do you think Lizzie would do in the same situation? If she were greeted by her childhood?"

"How do you know –"

"Scared children. I can see them."

The Doctor stopped – and realised that she had understood him all along. "I'm… sorry."

Jada backed away from him, because she did not care what the Doctor was going to say to her. This was not something she would be a part of. "I will fight my own fight." Jada hoped that he understood (although she didn't care), that she couldn't fight his.

Then, she vanished into the shadows.

The Doctor sighed, and felt an idiot – emotions getting the better of him. A regular thing, perhaps – although he wasn't bothered about it. Better to have emotions than no emotions at all. He would not blame Jada for anything, however.

Then he glanced over, and saw that in her wake, a strange device was lying on the ground.

The holo-caster orb.

He picked it up and rolled it in his hand, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Jada had said that Lizzie had vanished in a white light, but he didn't feel any different.

He gasped suddenly, feeling something rummaging about in his head, and raised his defensive barriers. Once he deemed it safe, he lowered his barriers a little to try and catch a glimpse of the opposing person.

It was a woman with brown hair, floating aimlessly in a stark grey realm .

Lizzie.

Relief washed over him. She was safe, but she was trapped, and would be very confused when she woke up. Maybe if he could send her a message…

He closed his eyes, furrowed his brow, and concentrated. It took several tries, but he managed to send a message through the orb to his friend — Don't worry, I'm on my way — along with a detailed summary of the events that had unfolded.

He opened his eyes to look at the orb again, his mind racing. It wasn't just one mind he felt trying to reach out. A thought occurred to him and he raced out the door. To his relief, Jada was in Chasya's makeshift medical bay getting a check up. They looked up at him and were taken aback by his jovial expression.

"I've figured it out!"

"Figured what out?" Chasya asked him in bemusement.

He held up Jada's orbs and talked over her protestations. "The orbs — they're the key! I need you to gather up all your orbs."

"Why?"

"Trust me!" He rushed out the room and bounded up the stairs. He couldn't be sure that there wasn't an emergency self-destruct mechanism on the holo-casters, so he would have to deactivate them all at once. He wouldn't be able to save everybody, but at least he could help the Hunters.

A short while later, the women all entered the room, with Jada in the lead.

"Explain what you're doing."

"These orbs," he held Jada's up as an example. "You said you've had them all your life? Have you ever used them?"

"Well, yeah," Jada nodded. "I used it as a diary."

"I used to keep on top of global phenomenons," Fortuna added. "We didn't use them for the same purposes."

"Yes, but that doesn't matter. You see, these are linked to you. Do you want to know why?"

"Why?"

"It's a database," he explained eagerly. "With added functions. It's the future, everything's moved on. The people who disappear, you said you didn't know where they went. They're in here. That's why this shines so brightly in the light. All those colours represent the trapped people. I don't know what happens in there, but I know that we have to free them."

"How?" Jada asked. "Is my mum in there? Is that why she disappeared?"

"Quite possibly!" He noticed the lingering hesitation and sighed. "Look, I know that this is a lot to take in, but I do think I'm right, and I need you to trust me."

"I do," Chasya said, handing over her orb. The Doctor looked at her in bewilderment " What? I think you're a bit weird, but I think you know what you're talking about."

"Yes, thank you!" He turned to the others. "Well? Come on, come one!"

Slowly, one by one, they each produced their orbs from their cloak pockets and deposited their orbs in the Doctor's hands.

Fortuna walked up to him with her orb in tow. "I hope you're right, Doctor."

"Me too," he replied truthfully. Satisfied with his answer, she handed him her orb and joined the small group of females. Finally, only Jada remained. The Doctor looked at her hopefully. "This could help everybody."

She hesitated. "Lizzie?"

He nodded.

"My mum?"

"I don't know for definite, but there's a very good chance."

Jada sighed, and nodded. "Fine. If it means I get to see her again."

The Doctor nodded, and spun around, dropping the seven balls onto a desk, and produced his sonic. Taking several steps back as a precaution, he activated the sonic and, after quietly hoping that he was right, deactivated the orbs.

* * *

The dark environment around them shifted rapidly, before dimming into an inky black colour before they could react. Lizzie looked around nervously, trying to figure out what had happened.

"You're fading," Drew noted with slight surprise. Lizzie looked at him, and then looked at her arm. She was unnerved to see it start to become transparent. She could glimpse the table slightly. Quickly putting her arm down. She looked up at Drew.

"So I am." She coughed to hide the tremor in her voice. "I guess this is it."

"Ah," he nodded. "It was a nice meeting. Lots of things were aired out."

Lizzie looked at him incredulously. Meeting. He made it sound like a formality, and not a reunion with his daughter.

"Were you real?" She asked, gesturing towards his youthful appearance. "Was any of this is real?"

"Memories are powerful, Lizzie," he responded cryptically. "Yours most of all."

"Is that a no?"

"It's a maybe."

"That's a shame," Lizzie sighed. "Because if it isn't, you won't know this." She leaned forward again and smiled. "Thank you."  
"For what?"

"For giving me life. For giving me a chance. I know that sometimes I can get tired but I think, you energised me."

"Well, I certainly did that," he smirked smugly. "Well, it's okay, I su —"

"I haven't finished," Lizzie continued, her smile intact. "Because you've given me something to fight against — you, and people like you. You're a horrible, horrible man. I think you see the light of redemption and choose to ignore it, and that is just unreal. You may have problems because of the people I like and the things I do and the name I choose, but they are irrelevant compared to you. Every step of the way, from now on, I'll fight people like, I'll fight your rhetoric and I will not stop. Never. So, if this is goodbye, I wanted to know that."

She was barely visible now. She was a ghost in the night.

"I'm going to fight people like you, dad."

A smile twitched at the corners of Drew's lips. He smiled challengingly at her and uttered a single sentence that floated all around Lizzie as everything faded into darkness..

"Well, I look forward to it, Lizzie Darwin."

* * *

"Did it work?" someone murmured. The Hunters all left the room, hurrying outside to check outside. Jada lingered behind for several seconds, eyeing the charred remains of her final tie to her childhood, before chasing after her peers. The Doctor checked the readings on his screwdriver thoughtfully, turned to follow the Hunters, and came face to face with Aldora.

"Aldora Baggot," he scowled.

"Oh, my dearie, Aldora taunted, grinning a malicious, gummy grin. "You don't know yet…"

The Doctor knew he was missing something. As he watched the little old lady, he knew that there was something so blatantly obvious he hadn't grasped yet. And Aldora knew he could see it – but she was determined to mock him over it…

"Tell me, what don't I know?"

"The truth behind the signal – and you're not going to find out… yet…"

The perception filter – the Doctor was sure of it. "Something about the perception filter, I know it! But tell me, Aldora, I need to know –"

"Oh, but why would I tell you that? You're my…," she whispered. "Competition…"

"You think I'm competition?" the Doctor ridiculed. As if he would ever get involved in such a disgusting system at this. "I'm here to stop this."

"I'm a business-woman. If you pose a risk to my profits, then you're competition."

Children for profit… the Doctor thought. Nothing short of trafficking. "You're disgusting."

Baggot gave the Doctor a look of genuine confusion, as if she had no idea why he was referring to her with such strong words. "I'm making my way in the world. And I came from nothing."

The Doctor looked at the old woman, so corrupted by society that she had no idea of the implications of what she said. He wasn't going to be able get anything out of her.

Perhaps there was a chance, then, that he would be able to decipher some meaning of the signal.

"The signal, then. I don't care what it's hiding. But what is it to you?"

Aldora mused on his sentence for a few seconds, as if working out what she could tell him to cause maximum frustration, and still give away very little. "The signal is… my insurance, perhaps."

The Doctor grimaced, as she spoke about children being insured, as if they were just… property. "Welcome to New Earth. I'd hoped that by now, we'd be past all… this."

The corruption of capitalism. Still running strong, even so many years in the future.

"Oh, Doctor. It's the best way. The only way."

"Just because it's the oldest, doesn't mean it's the best. You are ruining lives. I will stop you. And not just you."

His words turned cold – and perhaps he saw a brief flicker of fear in Aldora's eyes. But she regained herself – it was not a fight the Doctor could win. Even if he defeated her, the universe would still remain unsullied by his… socialist ways.

"You'd go to war against the greatest ideology? Oh, how childish you sound… you'll have to travel around the whole universe, you know."

"And I will."

Aldora laughed, as if the Doctor was merely making idle chit-chat – as if he could not possibly be making any kind of true threat. Although he was. But something wasn't right. Normally, he could say those words, and they would change things. He wasn't normally laughed down.

"I have it, on an authority higher than mine," Aldora explained herself. "That it's not a fight you can ever, ever win."

That was intriguing. An authority higher than Aldora? Listening to the way she spoke of this mysterious authority; the Doctor did not assume a boss. She spoke with something strange in her voice – something almost like… patriotism.

"Whose authority?" he questioned.

"A woman. More powerful and more terrifying than you will ever know. Our great leader – and she will crush people like you. People who betray us. Defectors." She spat out the last word, as if the very look of the Doctor in front of Aldora Baggot made her sick to the stomach.

"Who is she, Aldora?" the Doctor demanded, with desperation in his voice.

"The Prime Minister knows you, Doctor. And if you start to fight, then it'll be her you are provoking. The market herself. And she will rain hell upon you."

The Doctor stopped.

"The Prime Minister…" Aldora repeated. The Doctor listened, and it sounded as if Aldora expected the Doctor to know who she was talking about. But before he could ask anything, Aldora fell into a fit of mocking giggles. "You shan't find out about the signal, Doctor. Not yet!"

"I'm going to help these children, you know."

Aldora shook her head with great certainty – but she didn't care. It wasn't going to mean anything to her, apart from, perhaps, a brief setback. No… if the Doctor did help the children, then it would be much more tragic for him.

She leaned in closer. "Oh, but Doctor… you're not helping the children. You're condemning them."

"You have no idea what you're doing, Aldora. Brainwashed by society."

"I'm their mother, Doctor. And mother knows best."

She laughed again – this time, it was more of a cackle.

"You know," Aldora continued. "It's so close! Hidden in plain sight, by a simple perception filter. But – aww, dear – look at you. So emotionally driven. So desperate. You don't know, and it's killing you. Well, Doctor – I'm not going to tell you."

"Doctor!" Lizzie's frantic voice echoed into the room. The Doctor's head snapped up in relief and anxiety. He looked down at Aldora.

"What did you do?"

"Me? Nothing," she smiled innocently. "It was you. Those parents signed the terms and conditions, Doctor. They knew what they were getting into."

"What are you talking about?"

"I just thought I'd come to say goodbye," she tapped her wristwatch. "Before I depart. Holo-ring, you see. No thunderstorm this time, but alas, that was just to distract the locals. Bye, bye, darling. I hope you like your surprise."

She disappeared in a flash of blue light, and the Doctor ran out the room to follow Lizzie's frantic shouting, with the words of Aldora Baggot haunting him.

* * *

When Lizzie woke up, she was surrounded by an army of faceless children. She lurched to her feet in surprise and backed away when one of them looked at her. "Er, hi," she said awkwardly.

"Lizzie!"

It was the group from before, their crossbows at the ready. 'Meera' grabbed her by the arm and pulled her towards them.

"Meera?" No, that didn't sound right. She wracked her head, until a name came to the forefront of her memory. "Jada? What happened? I was —"

Before she could finish, the children started to scream, with their limbs flailing as if they were having an epileptic attack. Lizzie tried to move forward, but Jada pushed her back.

"Keep back!" she hissed.

"They look like they need help!"

"What's he done?" a red haired woman said furiously. "What's the Doctor done?"

"The Doctor? He's here?" Lizzie suddenly felt relieved. "He can help us!"

"Look!" a blonde woman exclaimed, pointing at the children. Their faces were starting to clear slightly, and Lizzie could make out the pallor of their skin. Jada suddenly went rigid when their faces cleared completely, her eyes fixed on a girl in the front.

The children stood there, swaying from side to side, before collapsing onto the ground. The Hunters lunged forward and Lizzie turned towards the building desperately.

"Is he in there? Doctor! Doctor!"

Jada wasn't listening. She collapsed onto her knees and rolled the motionless girl onto her back so that she could see her face. She stared in disbelief, unable to stop the tears from spilling for her eyes. "Mum?" she whispered quietly.

The Doctor burst onto the scene, immediately checking Lizzie over. They both stared in surprise. It felt like a lifetime since they had last seen each other. Then, he turned to Jada, and his heart sank. He moved over and sat down next to her.

"Jada, I'm sorry."

"But she's dead," Jada whispered in disbelief. "All of them. All these kids. But…but they're not kids. This is my mum."

"This is my dad," Chasya murmured quietly. "But it can't be. It's just his head on a child's body. But…how? Why?"

"I'm sorry, Chasya," the Doctor said mournfully. "I really am."

"What happened?" Lizzie asked. The Doctor sighed deeply.

"I've made a mistake."

* * *

"Explain it again," Jada demanded. She was back in the office lounge with the Doctor and Lizzie. Some of the Hunters had gone to clear up the bodies while Fortuna left to find something for the Doctor.

"Aldora Baggot and her accomplice struck a deal with desperate parents to create the "perfect child" in a bid for a grand evolution scheme. She used stolen technology to facilitate her scheme. Technology I haven't seen before. The holo-caster orbs, she used them to keep an eye on you. Made sure you couldn't be taken into care and were left alone because you were failed batches"

"But, those children, who were they?"

The Doctor looked down darkly. "I think they were the bodies of your dead brothers and sisters."

"I didn't have a sibling."

"You did," he replied. "There was someone else in that womb before you replaced them. They probably grew up alone and then killed for her schemes."  
"That's horrific," Lizzie gasped.

"And..my mum's face?" Jada continued. "Why her face?"

"I guess she didn't have enough money," the Doctor speculated. "It's always the way with these things. Not enough funds to develop the failed batches, so she used a perception filter to hide them. Make people look away. Senseless propaganda to turn away the lost."

"But she recognised me. She came to my house. Our house!"

"Again, the orb. Like Chasya said, it's keyed to you in more ways than one. It's your birth certificate among many other things. Like an inbuilt tracker, she used it to find you."

"All this time…" Jada murmured, at a loss. "My own mum."

"You thought she was your tormentor," the Doctor reminded her.

"Oh, she was," Jada responded fiercely. "She was a part in all this. She stripped me of my identity. I'm a walking enigma. Why would she do such a thing?"

"She might have been scared," Lizzie spoke up. "Sorry, I know it was my place, but maybe she wanted the best life for you."

"That doesn't excuse anything."

"No," Lizzie agreed. "It doesn't."

"I'm sorry," the Doctor sighed. "I should have seen it. It was staring me in the face. I thought the signals were from a low-level perception filter, but it was from something far more powerful, and I couldn't stop it."

"You should have seen it," Jada said bitterly.

"Yes, I should have." He looked out the window. Fortuna was visible in the distance, driving in on a hover-van with a familiar looking blue-box in the back. "I'm sorry, Jada. I could have given you some time with your mother, but I robbed her away instead."

"It wasn't your fault," Jada sighed. "You weren't to know. I'm sorry too, I'm expecting too much of you."

"Maybe this is why I'm alone," he murmured. "I'm old, and I'm dangerous. How long can I keep this up?"

"As long as it takes," Lizzie said determinedly, walking up to him and placing a hand on his shoulder. "Because that's the sort of person you are. And you're not alone anymore, that's just being daft. You have me now."

"Planning to stick around?"

Lizzie grinned. "After today, I'm not planning on going anywhere."

The Doctor smiled back. "Thank you."

"It's okay," Lizzie smiled back and turned to Jada. "What you did for Meera, that was brave and really, really nice. I know you think it was all a big opportunity to bring down your enemy, but you still did it, and that counts for something."

"Easy for you to say, you haven't met Aldora," Jada muttered brazenly. "Neither did I, to be frank. I wanted to crush her so badly, and now I want to crush her even more."

"Look, Jada, you've done and said some questionable things in the short time I've known you, and I'm not discounting that, but the point I'm trying to make is — you did good."

Jada snorted at that. "Thanks, Lizzie. That was proper eloquent."

Lizzie giggled. "I know, I should just not speak, should I?"

"Yeah," she sighed."Well, what happens to the pair of you now?" Jada asked.

"We go off, have adventures," replied the Doctor. "Do good and stop suffering as best as we can. What about you?"

"I don't know," she sighed. "Chasya and Fortuna, they're alright. They didn't really have good relationships with their parents, but we're a family now, and so are the rest. We're the Hunters of Artemis, and I'm sticking with them. As for what we're gonna do," she shrugged. "End of the road, isn't it."

"Perhaps," the Doctor conceded. "But there are other routes to take."

"You have a whole identity to forge," Lizzie added. "If there's one thing that I've learnt today, it's that. Your mum may have failed you, but that's not something to mull over. It's a destructive cycle that I was mostly spared from. I'm sorry that you had to endure it, but you're better than your mum. You're not perfect, nobody is, but you can be good. You can have heart. You could be a hero."

"Me?" she laughed self-deprecatingly. "I wish."

"Well, there's a whole planet out there," the Doctor noted. "A whole cycle to break. They need your help. They need the Hunters of Artemis. Just…maybe cut down on the violence."

Jada smiled glumly. "No promises. Besides, heroes give hope. I could do with some hope right about now."

Lizzie smiled at the Doctor, and the Doctor smiled at Lizzie.

"We can arrange that."

* * *

"So this is the future of the human race," Lizzie sighed. "It's a bit grim. I don't like it."

"No, neither do I," the Doctor replied sullenly. They were both back in the TARDIS and he was leaning over the TARDIS console, stroking the rotor affectionately. "She's right as rain now. That's good."

"All she needed was a rest, like you said."

"Yes. Sometimes resting is good…" he pulled a face. "But they're mostly boring."

Lizzie laughed. "Are you okay now?"

He looked at her seriously. "Are you?"

"No." She smiled awkwardly. "But I've sort of made a promise to myself."  
"Oh?"

"Yeah! To stick up for myself more."

"Well, that's very noble of you," the Doctor grinned. "Boosting your self-esteem is always a good thing."

"Yeah probably," Lizzie smiled, trying not to show how awkward her declaration made her feel. "Do you think this will give Jada hope?"

"Oh, Lizzie Darwin," he grinned impishly. "I know it will."

* * *

"We look like right nobs," Chasya complained.

Jada rolled her eyes "Oh, shut up, Chasya,"

"The interior's quite something," Fortuna stated. "Seriously, you would have loved it. It's mystifying…and surprisingly weightless. Though maybe that's just because she was feeling nice."

"She?" Chasya looked at her curiously. She looked at the box and waved. "Hiya, fellow gal pal."

"You're absolutely ridiculous sometimes."

"Yeah, whatevs."

Jada sighed in exasperation, and just focused on the box. She didn't know why the Doctor and Lizzie had asked them to watch them enter blue shed, but she supposed they must have had a reason. Honestly, she just wanted to crawl into bed with some orange-apple tart and sleep for days. Promising to be better was easy, but the road to fulfilling that claim was more difficult.

Suddenly, to her amazement, the box started to make an unearthly sound, and it coaxed Jada out of her thoughts. It started flickering, hovering in and out of reality as if it was just a holographic transmission. She stared, transfixed, her ears ringing from the symphony. It was beautiful, and terrifying, and it filled her from the brim with joy, though she would never show her friends. She liked being the stoic one.

Eventually, the box disappeared and Jada still stood rooted to the spot.

"Hey," Chasya said. "Look, there's a package for you."

Jada looked down, and realised Chasya was correct. Where the blue box once stood was a parcel shaped around an object with a little note. She walked over and picked up the parcel, reading the note.

 _ **Heard you needed some cheering up! Rock 'em dead!**_

 _ ****_ _ **\- Planet of the Lesbians xx**_

She frowned at the note in confusion, but pocketed it for later use. She tore the parcel open and her eyes widened when she realised the contents.  
"No way," Chasya breathed. "That's awesome."

"Yeah," Jada grinned, wielding her new crossbow like an expert. It was black in colour, with sleek panelling and a lightness that made it easy to carry. Jada was entranced by it, running her fingers along the bottom. "It's beautiful."

"How come I don't get a gift?" Chasya huffed.

"You spent half the time calling him a perv," Fortuna pointed out.

"Yeah but still!"

"Somehow, I don't think this is from the Doctor," Jada laughed. And she didn't think it was from Lizzie either. But time would tell. There was still an tightness in her chest that needed time to be repaired, and she certainly wasn't truly happy, but for the first time since their mission started, she felt hopeful that, one day, she would return to the road of happiness. She turned to her friends, Chasya and Fortuna, the girls who had stuck with her through thick and thin — the ones she would call her closest sisters. Pulling her hood over her head, Jada smiled wryly.

"Ladies, we have work to do."


	7. 505 A Frosty Future

**PROLOGUE**

 _"Once upon a time, there stood a golden society upo_ _n the surface of the Red Planet. Upon the snows and the rocks, great spires of crystal and silver rose, high up into the atmosphere, and when one stood at the top they could see for miles and miles around, at the dust plains beyond the city. The juxtaposition of the blood-crimson against the gleaming white snows and buildings was truly a sight to behold._

 _The Martian society were governed by a brutal law, and the government itself was a corrupt and vicious monarchy. For any crime, no matter how small, the Emperor of Mars would sentence the criminal to lashes, and he would wield the whip himself. Often, criminals would be crucified on the hills of Mars, and would be left to turn the snows red. Heads would roll, hands were sliced off and eyeballs were gouged out._

 _Eventually, the situation became worse, when the Emperor began to fund an extremist group who went by the name of the Ice Warriors. They waged a war upon the universe, and they made the actions of the Martian monarchy appear tame. This order spilled blood, in order to spearhead their deadly ideology, and they would stop at nothing. Of course, many planets declared war upon the Ice Warriors. Thousands did. Would it ever change anything? Never. Because the roots of the conflict, the roots that shall become clear to you, were continually fertilised, by all those thousands of planets._

Across the universe, there were many Martians who lived peacefully on other planets - and many lived peacefully beside them. But it is crucial to know that there were many who refused - and it is these people who were just as disgusting as the Ice Warriors themselves.

 _Today, you shall find out about the events that led to this truly led to this situation out of hand, and what it took for the people of Earth to look to the skies and do something about it."_

 **THE EIGHTH DOCTOR ADVENTURES**

 **SERIES 5 - EPISODE 5**

 **A FROSTY FUTURE**

 **WRITTEN BY RYDER SMITH AND ED GOUNDREY-SMITH**

The TARDIS came to a stop, nearly jolting Lizzie from her chair. She couldn't tell if it was just the ship or the Doctor's flying ability – it often seemed like he just hoped for the best. And it was always a bumpy ride, she'd found. Still, it worked. Well, mostly. She got up from her seat, and put down the book she'd been reading: _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe - Vol. 6_. One of the Doctor's friends had left it, along with a pair of slippers.

She went up the stairs, passing under the aquarium – which housed lots of exotic fish – and found the Doctor sat in his armchair beside the console. He was too busy looking at the screen to notice her.

"So," she began, pausing for dramatic effect. "Where are we this time?"

"Ah, Lizzie, there you are," he said, getting up. He glanced back at the screen before answering. "Earth, 22nd Century."

"Near-future then. That's cool."

"Yes, it is a cold day. How did you know?"

"No, I didn't...never mind," she waved away his question, as he'd busied himself checking various different instruments. "What's it, erm, like out there? How have things, you know, changed?"

The Doctor paused what he was doing, and gazed at her. Except, he wasn't exactly looking at her, more _through_ her. As if he was somehow gazing into time itself. It was strange, he seemed both happy and sad, wistful too. The weight of time and space around him. A burden he seemed to carry with him everywhere, always in silence. Seconds later, he was back to normal.

"Well," he began, the word echoing around the large console room. "In some ways a lot has changed, certainly in a global sense, and there's the space travel, even attempts at colonisation, but in many ways it's the same. There are still skyscrapers, and cars, houses, people and so much beauty. By this point, humanity has overcome a lot, and achieved so much. It's fascinating really."

"So we can go and explore?" Lizzie gestured toward the doors.

"Well, seeing as we're here," he flicked a switch, and the interior doors swung open.

Lizzie went first. Opening the exterior door, she found herself in a bustling marketplace. Thereseemed to be hundreds of people, each one moving between the stalls, looking at what was on offer, buying knickknacks and trinkets. The stalls were incredibly diverse, selling a whole range of things. And the smell was incredible, a mixture of fragrances and spices.

"This is London's Central market, you'll find pretty much everything here. And, they do amazing coffees, or at least they did, funny what 100 years can do."  
"Coffee then sightseeing?"

"Sounds like a plan," Lizzie decided, that on such an adventure she was going to dare move away from her traditional ground of various teas.

The Doctor led her along the main thoroughfare, in amongst the crowds. It seemed strange to be walking in a crowd full of people who, to her, hadn't even been born yet – especially when this wasn't that far into the future. But, it felt reassuring to her to see everyone going about their lives, busying themselves with various things, just as they would in her time. The Doctor was right then, things weren't so different here.

The marketplace opened out into a large, open space. Like a town square. There were benches, and large fern-like plants. It was a nice area, too – one which would be perfect for events. Lizzie glanced down at the floor, and noticed that there were in-built lights which, presumably, lit up in a range of colours. Pink for Valentines, green for St Patrick's, and rainbow for Pride. It'd be a proper little light show.

Without warning, several soldiers appeared. They were all dressed in black,, the thick material was expertly woven and waved around the body snugly, as if they were specially fitted for each individual person. Gun-metal grey pressure plates were strapped onto the side of each shoulder and kneecaps, like the protection typically associated with football. They were each carrying a machine gun.

"Stay where you are," one commanded, presumably the group's leader – most likely a corporal or a sargeant. Lizzie wasn't entirely sure what was going on, but, naturally, she put her hands up. Her mind raced through questions. Who were these soldiers? What did they want with them? Were they going to kill her and the Doctor?

"Ah, you're UNIT," the Doctor observed. "Do you mind telling me why you have us surrounded – with guns?"

"What's UNIT?" Lizzie whispered.

"Unified Intelligence Taskforce," he whispered back, as if it explained everything.

"That's...that's not really explained anything."

"Oh, right, yes. Sorry. They protect the Earth from alien threats. I used to work for them, actually."

"Doctor, that you?" A woman appeared, cutting through the soldiers. She was dressed in a sharp business suit, with frizzy-yet-neat hair, and was grasping a small handheld device by her side. "Got yourself a new regeneration, I take it?"

"You're clearly the one in charge," noted the Doctor, edging towards her. "And yes, I am the Doctor. But not quite a _new_ regeneration. Well, I suppose it depends on your perspective."

"Ah, an older regeneration," she replied, glancing at her handheld. "Surprising this doesn't happen more often."

"Who are you?"

"Jo Stewart. Head of UNIT UK."

"Well, Jo Stewart, I'm guessing there's some kind of situation, given this lot?"

"Yes, there is," she admitted. "Plus, they do love a run out."

Lizzie, who had been stood around awkwardly, quietly cleared her throat. "What, erm, kind of situation?"

"It's probably better to show you. We'll head back to HQ." She gestured to the lead-soldier, who stood their troops down, and marched them out of the square.

"Tower of London?" the Doctor asked.

"Oh, no, we've not used that for years," replied Jo, walking off in the same direction as the soldiers.

Lizzie shared a nervous glance with the Doctor. What was it they were being thrust into? And who exactly was Jo Stewart? She didn't know, and she did not like that.

"We'll be fine," he told her reassuringly. "Come on, best not keep her waiting."

* * *

"Yep… we're in the tallest building in the city. Exactly 350 metres above sea level. Higher than the Shard," Jo pushed open a pair of double doors, revealing an almighty office.

UNIT HQ in this time was a remarkably different affair to how the Doctor was used to finding it. Jo led them into an open plan office, all glass and steel, with people in a menagerie of suits and white coats operating computers, wearing headsets and typing vigorously. People were passing in and out of the room, and there was a constant stream of activity. On the wall, there was a great holographic screen, with a map of London in net form, the buildings and streets all taking the form of tiny neon blue squares.

Lizzie walked to the window, looking out over the city below her. Because it _was_ all below her, they were so high up, with the thick crystalline cloud only metres above them. Below her, everything was augmented, with even the glorious brickwork architecture modified with alloys and compounds to become 'super', which Lizzie was sure was just code for 'really good at making more money'. That's all the inner city was - the place where the money was made. Beyond the glass surrounding her, there would be suburbs and slums, where people crawled along in their daily lives, either just scraping above the poverty line or sinking far below it. Everything was controlled for the purposes of money making, no matter what the consequence.

Lizzie turned to see the Doctor beside her. "The city is so beautiful," he said, looking out.

"Yeah," she murmured. And it was, albeit tainted at the same time.

Jo joined them, pointing upwards. "That's the situation."

The Doctor looked at her, and then out again. "You mean…"

"The cloud. Yep. One night, it wasn't there. Next morning, it was."

"It just appeared overnight?" the Doctor questioned, walking over to a scientist and peering over their shoulder at the readings.

"It's a dense fog, basically. We've isolated gases and found oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, argon - it's your everyday fog, except it's lying across half the country constantly at an exact height of 356 metres above sea level," Jo pointed at various graphs and diagrams and maps on the wall screen, although the Doctor didn't seem hugely interested. "Temperatures all over the country have dropped by varying amounts, so that the whole of the UK is being kept at exactly 3.25 degrees celsius. No fluctuations in that whatsoever."

"Excuse me, can I use your computer?" the Doctor asked one of the scientists. He turned to Jo, who nodded, and the scientist moved. "3.25 degrees is the optimum temperature for fog," the Doctor tapped away. "How is this all so… constant." He took the remote control by the side of the computer and pointed it at Jo's screen.

"Apologies," he muttered. Jo scowled at him as her graph and diagrams disappeared.

 _"We gave 100 people 100 seconds to answer the facts upon the board," declared the Osmanbot. "The facts being, of course, about the Cloud."_

"What are you doing?" Jo was aware that the Doctor had a reputation of unconventional methods, although she couldn't see how watching Pointless was going to help them. Lizzie prepared herself for the usual excuse for browsing the television of the respective planets they visited - 'I'm checking media channels'.

"I'm checking media channels…"

The Doctor pressed the remote again. Lizzie made a mental note to see if they had space Pointless on iPlayer later.

 _"It's clear! This Cloud is just another act of terrorism. Or, at least, that is how it will be treated by those at the top! They'll brush it under the carpet, and tell you that the war upon intergalactic terror is going well. Let me tell you this, citizens of the Empire. It is not!"_

The Doctor changed the channel again.

"Trust Cullengate to have something to say," Jo murmured, although the Doctor ignored her.

 _"Hello and welcome to DIY SOS. Today's build comes from a family who have had the upper portions of their house obliterated by the Cloud. Yep, the thick condensation has given them an extreme case of damp, and after stripping the wallpaper, they discovered that the entire back-end of their suburban property just down the road from Chester's largest solar mill was falling apart from the sheer wetness!"_

"Humanity is so beautiful," the Doctor smiled. "No matter what adversity you face, you bind together and you muddle through. Glorious."

"Do you think it's dangerous?" Jo looked sceptical.

"Alien or not, who knows. But regardless whether it's just a miracle of nature, you're all in trouble. NHS winter crisis? Except all year round. Farmers? Out of business. I don't even know if your infrastructure would cope with it."

"Well, the cloud layer obviously isn't natural," Lizzie watched the way the thick fog covered the Big Ben, the London Eye, and the whole city.

"I'll inform the Prime Minister," Jo told the Doctor.

"And you think they'll do something?"

"Who knows…," the Doctor returned to his computer. "Wait."

A brief moment of silence followed, and all eyes were on the Doctor. "Lizzie… what did you say?"

"Hmm?"

"You said something."

"Oh yeah… don't worry about it."

"No, go on."

Lizzie sighed. "The fog is at 356 metres, that's exactly one metre above the height of this building - the tallest building in the country. I mean, think about it? The chances of the fog appearing _exactly_ above the tallest building suggests it was put there deliberately. I mean, probably…"

"Lizzie, you're a genius. Jo, we need to find the source of this fog…"

* * *

The Doctor and Jo had been busying themselves, for the past couple of hours, trying to locate the source of the fog. Scientists flitted about the room, running various simulations, in attempt to find a way of doing the same. But, so far, they'd got nothing. The satellites, which had been the first port of call, had picked up nothing. They were unable to scan through the clouds. Drones had been sent up into it, but they had frozen solid before gaining any discernable data. They'd only managed to gain one sample, which had been collected from the top of the tower.

Lizzie had withdrawn herself to a corner of the room, wanting to avoid getting in the way. It wasn't like she really had any scientific knowledge anyway. She had, however, been half listening to what they were saying, while also gazing out of the window. At first, she had been studying the city, looking at all the finer details, but her mind had drifted to thoughts of home. She wondered what had become of Dunsworth. Were there still fusty old people? Was there still a divide between the town and the estate? She might not even recognise it. Everyone she knew would be gone. There'd be nothing left, just memories. _Probably best not think about it_ , she decided, going back to listening in.

"Still nothing, ma'am," one of the scientists told Jo.

"Have the radio telescopes picked up anything?"

"The readings are all over the place. Nothing precise."

"Well, keep at it. Update me if things change."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Doctor, you got anything?"

"Not exactly, but I've got an inkling."

 _Another one of his 'inklings',_ Lizzie thought, _where he makes it up and hopes it works._

"What kind of inkling?" Jo pressed him.

"A good one, I should think," he replied.

"Get on it then."

Neither of them said anything more. Presumably the Doctor had started working on his idea – whatever it was. Lizzie hoped it worked, as they'd been cooped up in this office for ages. She wanted to get out there, experience London-of-the-future. As it was, she felt kind of...disconnected from it. Like she was merely surveying it, similar to a zoo. You could see everything, yes. But there was still glass separating you.

"It's Lizzie, isn't it?"

Lizzie turned to see Jo stood next to her. "Erm, yes – yes it is."

"Nice to meet you, properly," she smiled, before noting, "Not had chance, given the situation."

"That's fine, honestly."

"Can't imagine you wanted to be stuck in an office though?"

"Not really, no," she replied, before feeling a bit rude for being so blunt. "I mean, it's a nice office and all, but the future is out there."

"I've not been out in the city, socially, for a while. Never enough time."

"Must be hard, this job."

"Oh, it is. But, you know, being right at the forefront, defending the world, makes it all worthwhile."

"If you were back in my time, you might not like protecting it that much."

"When exactly is _your_ time, if I'm not intruding?"

"No, you're not, erm, intruding. 2017."

"Yeah, that was a rough period."

"It – it seems weird that that's history to you."

"Yes, I suppose it would be. Time travel for you – it's a tricky idea to grasp. I mean, just look at the Doctor, any version of him could show up at any time."  
"Honestly, he never seems to know where – or, rather, when – he's gonna turn up next. It's all a bit…well, random."

"Do you...do you think he know's what he's doing?" Jo asked, tentatively.

"I'm not sure I'd, erm, go that far. I know he tries, and seems to succeed mostly, but I don't think he knows, not for sure. Like, he seems to just hope for the best."

"Sounds more like it. The stories only go so far, it's hard to tell how much is just nostalgia."

"Stories? Like, records on him?"

"Well, yes, we do have those. But these stories are more...personal."

"So your family knew him?"

"You're very sharp, you know," Jo told her. "Yes, they did, quite well in fact."

She paused, as if exploring the stories in her mind. Like she was listening to them all over again.

"My four times great grandfather, Alistair, was the first who met him. They worked together, back in the 70s or 80s, during the early days of UNIT. Always dashing about, always having adventures. Even when the Doctor left, they stayed in touch, occasionally went driving together. Oh, and he always had an extra brandy put aside, should he come knocking. It was a tradition he kept, right to the end."

"Sounds like you wish you'd known him."

"I often wonder, what would he make of all of this here."

"If I were him, I'd be proud. I mean, look at you, leading UNIT, continuing the same fight."

"Well, that means a lot."

At that precise moment, the Doctor let out a cheer. "Eureka!"

Jo, with Lizzie behind, hurried over to him. He was stood back from the desk, admiring his creation. It looked like an old gameboy, just with various loose wires, a couple of flashing lights, extra buttons, and two aerials sticking out the top.

"It's very...retro," Lizzie noted. "But, erm, what is it?"

"It's how we track the cloud."

"How's it going to do that?" inquired Jo, not as easily convinced as Lizzie.

"Well, simply put, the cloud contains a crystalline substance, and that in turn is generating a low level frequency. This device is tuned to that frequency."

"Definitely not natural then," Jo noted. "We best make a move on this, fast."

She strolled over to the lift, and was followed by another woman, clearly an assistant of some kind, who she spoke with briefly. Presumably, they'd contact the Prime Minister, and update her on the whole situation. Lizzie looked at the Doctor, and noticed a confused look on his face. "What's up?" She asked.

He turned to look at the windows with a frown. "It feels like I'm missing something."

"Like what?"

"I'm not sure."

"Doctor, are you coming?" Jo called over to him.

"Yes. Lizzie ‒" He turned to his companion, except she wasn't there. "...Lizzie?"

"Yup?" She was already waiting by the lift. The Doctor stared at her, and she smiled awkwardly. "What? I know how you operate by now."

He chuckled and joined them. "It seems you do. You ready?"

"Yeah."

"Sure? I mean, after what happened last time…"

"It'll be fine," Lizzie assured him with a smile. "I mean, even if it wasn't, I'd still go. Can't let it hold me back, you know?"

"Yeah," the Doctor murmured as the lift chimed open. "I do."

* * *

"Take a left here," the Doctor said, and the jeep swung round the corner.

It was rather swish, Lizzie had noted. The chairs were leather, the windscreen had heads up display, it had blacked-out windows, a rather fine trim, and was quite roomy too. Clearly, it wasn't one of UNIT's standard vehicles, and was, most likely, for Jo's personal usage only.

"And a right." The Doctor was sat beside her in the back of the car, fiddling with his strange contraption, which seemed to beep randomly. "Another left."

They were racing through the city, going way over the speed limit – if there even was a speed limit anymore – but the driver seemed incredibly competent.

They'd not hit anything, or even mounted the curb, the car just moved gracefully through the streets. Lizzie wasn't even being jostled about in her seat, which, at this speed, seemed impossible. Obviously car-y stuff had been improved a lot, not that she really got any of the technical jargon car experts spouted, or even paid attention to it.

Now they were going along a narrow side-street, only just wide enough for the jeep. Again, they collided with nothing, there wasn't even a slight scrape. They shot out the other side of the street, took a sharp right, now moving along a main road. Seconds later, they came to a sudden stop. "Sorry, pedestrian zone. We can't get past the bollards," Jo stated.

"Are we close to the, erm, you know, place?" Lizzie asked, hesitantly.

"Yes, yes we are. I think," the Doctor replied, bashing his gizmo again.

"How close?" Jo asked.

"It'll just be a quick walk away."

"Let's get a shift on then," exclaimed Jo. "The sooner we find the source, the better"

"Might give me chance to see some sights," Lizzie muttered as she clambered out of the vehicle. The Doctor and Jo followed.

They were on a fairly ordinary London street, high rise buildings practically surrounding them. It was quiet too, as the city had, presumably, been closed off, and possibly evacuated to an extent. That made their venture that bit easier, they wouldn't have to deal with any crowds – which would undoubtedly be even more prevalent in the 22nd Century.

"Lead the way then." Jo gestured ahead to the Doctor.

"Right, err, this way."

He set off at a brisk pace, holding his device in front of him – like a geiger counter. Lizzie and Jo followed, with eight soldiers behind them. They walked along the pedestrianised street. The shops on either side of the road were shut up, and nobody was in sight. It was strange, almost unearthly, walking through a city like this. Without the people, the traffic, the sounds, it was all just concrete and glass and metal.

The Doctor stopped suddenly, pressed a button, then darted off down a narrow alleyway. It was probably only wide enough for two people side-by-side – the soldiers had to go down one by one, as they wouldn't fit otherwise. The buildings seemed to lean in over them, like old shakespearean streets did, making the alley feel even more tightly enclosed.

Once they reached the other side, they found the Doctor stood in the middle of another pedestrianised street. He looked puzzled, and was holding his sonic screwdriver to the device.

"Has it, you know...?" Lizzie began.

"...Stopped working?" the Doctor instinctively finished her sentence. "No, no, it's still working."

"Then, erm, what?"

"It says the source is...well, right here."

"But...we'd see it, wouldn't we?" Lizzie queried.

"Could it be shielded? Perception filter perhaps?" suggested Jo.

The Doctor scanned the area, before staring intently at the readings. "Doesn't appear so." He paused, gazing up at the sky. "Unless...oh, but it could be."

"In the cloud, you mean?" Jo asked him, as he scanned the air.

While the Doctor waved his sonic screwdriver about, the buzzing noise varying in frequency as he did so, Lizzie glanced around the street. There was nothing out of the ordinary, or, at the very least, nothing she could see – like Jo said, it could be shielded. She doubted it though, especially as the Doctor was generally right about these things. Then again, he was currently waving a metal stick in the air, like he was performing an elaborate dance. She stifled a laugh, and hid her smile by looking down at her feet.

And that's when she saw it – a manhole cover. The source wasn't on the ground, or in the sky, it was under the city.

"Erm...Doctor?" Lizzie tried to get his attention. He wasn't listening.

"It must be up there. There's nowhere else it could be," the Doctor reasoned.

"Doctor?" Lizzie tried again, a little louder this time. Still nothing. "Doctor?!"

"What's wrong?" The Doctor spun round to face her.

"Nothing's wrong, it's just...well, you're kind of missing the obvious."

"I am?"

"It's literally under your feet."

He looked down at his feet, then back at her, a look of realisation on his face. "Oh! Lizzie, you're getting a raise."

"You don't pay me," she noted.

"Well, I ought to," he replied, before turning to Jo. "We need to get down there."

"I gathered." She nodded towards the soldiers. Two of them were currently in the process of pulling up a manhole cover.

* * *

Lizzie climbed down the ladder, the last of the soldiers behind her. As she reached the bottom, the stench of the sewer hit her like a wave. It was vile. Possibly the vilest thing she'd ever smelt. She almost gagged it was so bad.

"Here, try this." Jo passed Lizzie what looked like a nose plug. "Should block out the smell."

She put it on her nose, and, within seconds, the smell was gone. "Much better, thanks."

"Good." She turned to the Doctor. "Now, Doctor, what have we got?"

"The signal is still below us. We'll need to get down to the old tunnels."

"Lucky I brought this then." Jo brandished her handheld tablet. She tapped the screen a few times, before turning it to the Doctor. "Map of the tunnel network."

"That was quick," exclaimed Lizzie.

"Downloaded it before we came down here, just in case," she replied. "Right, let's go."

The Doctor purposefully went off down the tunnel. The wrong way.

"It's this way," Jo called back to him. "Sergeant, you and your troops, watch our six."

"Yes ma'am."

The soldiers positioned themselves behind Jo, Lizzie and the Doctor. If anything came from behind, they'd be ready. With that, they set off along the tunnel. They did so in silence, listening out for anything out of the ordinary. There was nothing save their footsteps and the rustle of fabric. Lizzie didn't like how quiet it was, normally she wouldn't mind it, but she was in a sewer, heading towards an unknown danger. The soldiers being there proved it would be dangerous.

"How far do we need to go?" She asked, trying to focus on something else.

"Not far actually, about ten minutes down this section. So fifteen minutes to the source I'd say," Jo replied.

"Have either of you noticed…?" The Doctor began

"The temperature dropping? Yes, I have," Jo replied.

"Is that, erm, normal?" Lizzie asked.

"I mean, it could be, yes." responded the Doctor. "But the temperature outside is low already, and we're approaching 0 celsius down here."

"Best watch our step then. Might get, you know, a bit icy."

"Hmm?" he murmured, before registering what she'd said. "Oh, yes, good point."

They pressed on down the darkened tunnel. It was still silent. There wasn't even a rogue rat. At least that would have taken Lizzie's mind off things, if only briefly. She shot a glance at the Doctor, not that he noticed, he was too busy thinking. He had a very specific thinking face, and he did it often. His brow would furrow, he'd have his mouth slightly open, and his eyes seemed to glint. There was something about the situation that was puzzling him, it was clear, but quite what she didn't know. Still, he'd figure it out, he always did.

"This is it," Jo stated.

They'd come to an opening, which led into a large chamber, with brick-built arches – clearly part of the older tunnel network. One of the soldiers lowered down a rope ladder, while two others secured it to the tunnel. Another two went down first, to check the general area. Jo went down next, closely followed by the Doctor.  
Lizzie was a little tentative, rope ladders always looked a little hard to use, though she'd only seen them in films, and she'd hate to land flat on her back as a result. That would be embarrassing. And ever so slightly painful. She decided it best not to let on, as that too would probably be embarrassing, instead she persevered. It was a bit wobbly, but she found it surprisingly easy.

"Right, not far to go now," Jo said once Lizzie was down. "Stay alert, we don't know what we might find down here."

They moved along the old brick-built tunnel, which was ever so slightly smaller than the newer one, but it seemed a bit cleaner somehow. Perhaps because it wasn't used that much anymore. There was also a lot more ice down there, the walls glistened in the torch light. Their breaths were visible too. It had to be sub-zero now. Lizzie was thankful that she was wearing her coat, it wouldn't be too comfortable without one.

She stopped suddenly, as Jo put her arm out in front of her. Then Lizzie saw it, a hole in the side of the tunnel, it looked like it had been smashed through with a sledgehammer.

"What's through there Jo?" the Doctor inquired, his voice low.

"I'm not entirely sure, there's nothing on this map."

"Well then, let's take a peek, shall we?" he said, eager to have a look.

"You're not going in first, this is still a UNIT operation, even if you are still on the books," she told him, before turning to the soldiers. "Sergeant, would you mind?"

"Not at all ma'am."

The Sergeant and one other soldier went in. They had their guns ready… but it was strangely silent in the wide, dome-shaped cave. It was like part of some kind of… sewer system, constructed of slate-grey bricks, that had now become damp and covered in moss and weeds. It was a big chamber, perhaps similar to the size of a school hall. What was notable was the circular device in the centre. It was reminiscent to the TARDIS' console – or at least, the base of it. It was a circular platform, divided into various compartments of buttons and switches. A light shone through the centre, and it seemed to burst right through the bricks in the ceiling.

The two soldiers beckoned them further in, and Jo entered, followed by another few soldiers, followed by the Doctor and Lizzie, and then two soldiers bringing up the rear. When they were all in the room, they spent a few seconds in limbo, while the Doctor and Jo negotiated what should be done with the device.

But everything changed when two beams of light burst from the corners of the room, and the two soldiers at the front of the line disintegrated. Jo didn't even have time to finish her "what the hell", before great, scaly green shadows lumbered over, and grabbed the other soldiers, pulling them back against the walls. Another shadow, taller than the others, emerged at the front of the pack. The Doctor's eyes darted around the room, and he could see them on all sides.

They were surrounded by Ice Warriors.

The soldiers were held back, leaving the three of them in the centre – the Doctor, Lizzie and Jo.

The Ice Warrior at the front was seemingly larger, and with a helmet which revealed a part of its face, and it strode right up to the Doctor, until it loomed over him.

"Hello," the Doctor murmured, as he eyed up the beast in front of him. "You are?"

"Grand Marshall Sssekeldor."

"Good morning, Grand Marshall," the Doctor nodded, brushing quickly past him and over to the machine. "This _is_ a fascinating device."

All of them in the room looked awkwardly over at the Doctor as he looked over all over the controls, and gently reached into the light in the centre.

"The Ice Warriors," the Doctor started as if he were beginning a lecture. "A Martian extremist group, terrorising the globe – a major problem as of recent, I see."

"We will expand, we will control," Skeledor turned to the Doctor. "Martian sssocietiess of thisss planet will be consssolidated."

"And you'll butcher innocents in the process?"

"We will cleansssse this planet of its ways."

"But we have already won."

The Ice Warriors stepped away from their respective soldiers, and they dropped to the floor, gasping for breath. They thumped their scaly armour with their scaly hands and suddenly, they all vanished in a flash of blue light. Grand Marshall Skeledor did the same.

It had been rather a whirlwind incident, leaving the Doctor, Lizzie, Jo, and the soldiers, rather confused. They all looked around, waiting for something to happen – that couldn't be it, surely? But when the Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver, and scanned the strange device, he was almost certain that it was.

"Jo," the Doctor explained. "Get the soldiers out of here."

Jo hesitated, but at that time, all she could do was trust the Doctor. "Move out," she gave the order. The group did as they were told, leaving the Doctor, Lizzie, and Jo.

"What's the machine?" Lizzie looked over at it.

"It's what we expected," the Doctor shrugged. "It's causing the fog."

When he looked around at the two of them, they both saw the look on his face. It was not just one of fear, of sheer, undiluted grimness – it was one of hopelessness.

Jo spoke plainly. "Is the fog a threat?"

"Where are we?" the Doctor ignored her.

"Beneath the Glitterstorm Shopping Arcade."

The Doctor shook his head, as if she were lying to him, even though he knew she wasn't. In an instant he was on his knees, yanking the metal panelling off the side of the device, and within seconds he was grabbing as much cabling as he could and yanking it out.

"Lizzie, take the other side, do the same. Just pull out as many wires as you can."

Jo looked at both of them as if they had both lost it, and then she caught sight of the force with which the Doctor tore strips of electronics from the belly of the device.

"Doctor, I need to inform –"

"Inform who you like, it's not going to change anything."

Lizzie sighed and looked over the rim of the device. "Doctor, what's happening?"

The Doctor paused, before standing up and pointing to the machine as if it were a test subject of some kind. "This is projecting a fog blanketing the entire country. The ice crystals in the fog create an energy framework that comes to a head right above this spot – it will, when exploded, cause devastating damage above our heads. And I've got… I don't know, a minute, perhaps, until it goes."

 _Oh my god_. The true weight of what was going on dawned upon the two others in the room, who finally understood the severity of the situation. Jo responded by grabbing her phone, and seemingly calling whatever emergency numbers she could. Lizzie, meanwhile, looked sadly above her. So many people – and she realised she was crying. People who were loved, people whose lives had marked the world, with their loves, their passions, sent text messages, voicemails, letters. People they had adored, people who had adored them. And it was going to be taken away from them, and here she was, trapped and unable to do anything about it.

"Just… do something," she ran over to the Doctor. "Please, do something really clever and… save them, please –"

"I cannot do something really clever, because I don't have _time_ to do something really clever, so I'm resorting to doing whatever I can."

Jo called out to them. "They're trying to evacuate but… it's not going to be anywhere near enough the amount of time."

The Doctor buried his face in his hands, as if he wanted nothing more than to hide from this. But he looked up, because he understood that that was the worst thing he could've done.

A red light pulsed through the machine, and the ground above them shook.

* * *

 _The detonation of the Cloud, the epicentre of which was over a busy shopping centre, led to the deaths of many, many people. Innocent people. Good people. People who left their homes that morning, and who will never return, who expected their day-to-day lives to continue as normal, and whose lives will now never continue. People who had loved ones, loved ones who have their entire lives gutted by this devastating loss. And it is not fair. It is the cruellest, and most malevolent part of the universe that has been so spiteful to life, that has taken life and has taken the worth from life._

 _Children, with bright and golden futures. Who would do such amazing things, and who now had those things seized from them. They would have gone on to become such great, amazing people, and now nothing like that would happen. And children who had been at home, and whose mums and dads would never be coming back for them, a soul-destroying earthquake that would shatter their lives forever. Brothers and sisters, grandparent, nieces, nephews, cousins, disgustingly ripped away. And all of it by idiots who thought that the right thing to do was killing. And who, above all, had their lives seized from them, by a government who not only had caused terrorism, but who had funded terrorism._

 _It it is not as if this is a recent event. No – in recent years, the number of Ice Warrior related attacks has hugely increased. So many innocent lives taken, and for what? For terror. For division. Thankfully, after so much rocking of society, the government are beginning to take action. They are starting to crack down on the causes of this terror, and perhaps one day we will see an end to these vile crimes._

 _Oops. Sorry. Nope._

 _Turns out, the government are doing_ nothing _. Nope, nothing at all. Every time it happens, the Prime Minister stands outside her house in front of her little lectern, and she tells her people, it's all going to be alright! We're going to deal with terrorism, you're all safe, don't worry 'bout it! Chill!_

 _And nothing happens. Every single time, so many lives taken, and nothing._

 _As people, we buy the rhetoric. We change our profile pictures to the colour of a flag, we #prayfor*insert terrorised location here*. Why, of course solidarity is important – but solidarity means nothing if the people are not going to act upon it._

 _There are others as well, for it was not long after the Cloud detonated that the Nazis flocked to Twitter and began to broadcast their toxicity, declaring the need to do something, and that what must happen is a ban on the Martians from entering the planet, and leaving peacefully in society. That we should rigorously vet all of them and all of their lives._

 _Only a few days ago now, a human walked into a Martian settlement on Earth and massacred a group of innocent Martians. Terrorism. Disgusting, unadulterated terrorism._

 _The day after that the media came out in force, and what did they say about that dreaded action? They reported it, of course – but they were just a murderer. They weren't a terrorist. In fact, terrorism wasn't even mentioned. But what's that doing? It's just creating terror._

 _And so it is terrorism._

 _But does it get any attention? Oh, none at all. Although we take no action upon it, the Martians and the Ice Warriors are debated over and over, and yet a human commits any kind of atrocity, and it is ignored in an instant._

 _Well. I decided that this has gone on long enough. Because all of those loved people deserved so much better than this. All of those who have lost, deserve so much more. For far too long this horrendous cycle has turned and turned, and I have decided it must come to an end._

 _This is the day I met the Government._

The Doctor and Lizzie sat rather awkwardly upon two chairs, facing the desk of Richard 'Dicky' Hubble, the Secretary of State for Extra-terrestrial Affairs. Except, Richard Hubble was conspicuous in his absence. His PA had ushered the Doctor and Lizzie in, and told them to take a seat, and that Mr Hubble would be along in a bit.

Well, 'a bit' had certainly passed, and there was absolutely no sign of Mr Hubble. So, the Doctor and Lizzie had sat back, and taken in his office, which was quite remarkable. It was at the top of a great glass skyscraper, overlooking the entire city – a city so far below them that anyone who sat in this office regularly would not be able to see it properly. It was a spacious office too, the mark of a high-ranking government official.

Except, it was also notable in this a large amount of this space was occupied by clutter. Mr Hubble's desk was completely covered in scattered documents marked with 'confidential', and on top of those, looking sullenly out at the Doctor, was a ceramic bulldog draped in the Union Jack. As well as this, two flimsy looking flags were blue-tacked onto each side of the exquisite glass desk. There were several other random islands of clutter across the floor – a few red briefcases tossed aside amongst oceans of memos and notes, a few books here and there, and notably, a magnetic dart board was attached to the back of the door, upon which was sellotaped a picture of the leader of the opposition.

Lizzie couldn't help but feel slightly fearful for her life, if this was the state of the government. This cluttered… joke of an office.

Suddenly, the door with the magnetic dartboard attached crashed open, and Lizzie and the Doctor jumped around in their shock, as a bumbling oaf of a man practically fell into the room. He was lying face first on the floor, and looked up, a bemused look on his face. He clambered up and brushed himself off, before giving the Doctor a toothy grin, making a series of bumbling stuttering sounds.

"Bahaha!" he cried. "Doctor, splendid to be meeting you at last, my old man!" the Secretary of State for Interplanetary Affairs reached out and gave the Doctor a firm handshake, and completely ignoring Lizzie. Lizzie did not respond, deciding to instead glare at the moron opposite. She then took a deep breath, forgetting her usual desire to just sit quietly, and coughed to get his attention. It did, and then shook her hand as well.

"Nice to meet you too, Secretary-of-State," the Doctor gave him a sceptical look, as Richard Hubble tumbled over his waste paper basket and into his swivel chair. He sat there for a few seconds, visually wading through the sea of confidential paperwork upon his desk before mumbling to himself and swishing it all off to the side and the floor. Lizzie watched with a melancholy look as half of the planet's most important security documents sullenly floated their way down to the floor, and landed with a casual slovenliness.

 _Oh dear_ , Lizzie thought. First a cluttered joke of an office, now a cluttered joke of a man.

"Please, please, call me Dicky, bahaha!" Dicky drummed his hands upon his glass desk, nearly knocking over an old cup of coffee as he did so. Thankfully, the Doctor leaped in at the nick of time and stabled it.

"Right, _Dicky_ … look, we're here to discuss your relations with Mars…"

Dicky quickly put up his hands and interrupted him. "Look, before we get down to the ol' business at hand, whadabout a game of wiff waff, oi? Court's downstairs, gimme a few minutes, I'll have my whites on –"

"No, don't worry –"

"We've got a pool too!" Dicky continued nonchalantly. "Whack on your cozzies, quick dip, quick shmoozie in the ol' jacuzzi! Bahaha!"

The Doctor gave Dicky an awkward smile and then gave Lizzie a pale-faced grimace. As both of them were sat across from this complete halfwit of a man, they both began to understand why everything had come to such a desperate situation. The government just did not care. As long as they had power and were winning elections, which Dicky clearly was because of his idiocy, what happened to the people was of no concern to them.

Dicky sat back in his chair, displaying his lack of interest in actually doing anything useful.

"You've got to listen to him," Lizzie said. Oh, hello, that was exciting, her confronting a high-ranking government official. Dicky gave her a bemused look and she gulped, but decided to stand her ground. "This is very important and someone needs to do something about it."

Dicky mumbled a series of patronisingly sounding mumbles, and shook his head, as if to say Lizzie had no idea what she was talking about and she should shut up and let the professionals deal with it by the correct procedure. Lizzie looked at the grave of the confidential documentation on the floor, having come to realise that the 'professionals' didn't have a clue themselves.

"Well, you know," Dicky shrugged as if he were discussing the loss of a game of rugger he'd enjoyed at Eton not so long ago. "Didn't quite rumble this one in the jungle, as it were! But next time! Next time!"

He laughed to himself – after all, what a damned shame that those pesky Ice Warriors had got away with it again! Another blow to their great Britishness, alas. But what was to be done?

The Doctor decided that with this current attitude, they weren't going to get anywhere. His face transformed, his looks became cold – this was a cycle continuing for years, and it was finally time to put a stop to it. He spoke simply and plainly, because anything more complicated would probably go over ol' Dicky's head.

"I don't think so."

Dicky looked up with a shocked expression, a 'beg your pardon' kind of expression, the sort one would only expect etched across the face of a silly little man who hadn't been told 'no' very often. Only to be expected, really. Dicky came from an extremely rich family, had attended the poshest school in the entire country, went to Oxford, and was now Secretary of State for Intergalactic Affairs. He was used to people laughing along with him, perhaps accepting his request to join him in the sauna, being the national fool – everyone would agree with him because they loved him!

It seemed like the Doctor was not going to join the masses in their adoration.

"Can you not see that there's a problem?"

Dicky quickly jumped in with an answer, as if it were perhaps one he had learned from a script and was just spinning in his own… unique way. "Now now now, just a minute, now, just a minute, we are taking action, you know, yes. Let's be clear, here, yes – we're taking all sorts of measures to stop Ice Warrior extremism! Yes, HM's government are on the tippidy top of the terrorist-tackling game, we are!" he proudly declared. "Yes, we are," he repeated, as if he was having to reassure himself.

"Oh yes?" the Doctor questioned, jumping in like a predator leaping onto its prey. "Like what?"

"Well," Dicky began to scrabble through his mind, trying to think of that old measure ma'am had proposed at the most recent cabinet meeting. It'd just sort of slipped through the net, a few beers and perhaps it would resurrect itself. Suddenly, he remembered. "Ah yes! Well, of course we're going to be seeing if we can up surveillance measures –"

Lizzie sighed aloud, expecting some authoritarian rhetoric as she had just heard. It was surprising, even back in her time, the amount of people who were willing to live in a fascist state. Message-reading and history-browsing, which would all eventually lead to gun-toting, frisk-searching police officers in the streets.

"You absolutely do not need more surveillance measures," the Doctor interpreted Lizzie's thoughts.

"And, and, and!" Dicky continued, like a five-year-old who was certain he had cottoned onto the right answer. "And we're working with Martian communities to help them report extremis activity!"

The Doctor was already well aware that the Grand Marshall who had committed the atrocity had, in fact, been reported by his Martian community several times over. But they had been ignored. Every single time.

"Which they are already doing?"

"Ah yes, well," Dicky began, but the Doctor cut him off again.

"It's the same rhetoric," the Doctor explained. "Time and time again, it's the Martian's fault, they need to be doing more, but they're already doing everything, and you are doing nothing."

"Well, well, well, look!" Dicky continued. "Whadabout you explain what _you_ would do?"

 _Good save_ , Dicky observed for himself. He could get the Doctor's opinions, placate him, quick spot of badminton with the health sec before being off back home for the shooting party tomorrow.

"Firstly," the Doctor began. "Fairly good place to start would be to stop funding various governments on Mars – governments that fund and fuel the extremist Ice Warrior ideology. Earth needs to stop funding it – it's as simple as that."

Dicky raised a finger, as if about to make some great speech about his objection to the Doctor's cause. "Sorry old bean – can't be helped! They bring us in a shed load of cashingtons per annum! Score or what?!"

A horrified look spread across the Doctor and Lizzie's faces. "You know… I don't think this is an act," the Doctor had to go over Dicky's words in his head several times to try and grasp the true extent of their stupidity. It had often been of his belief that politicians like Dicky were just very scheming, very clever, always playing the fool so everyone was putty in their hands. But now, sat opposite the great buffoon of the government, it seemed as if this was Dicky in his truest form. A complete halfwit.

"But," the Doctor began to protest. "You – you're funding terrorism?"

"Well, not _precisely_ true –"

"Also," the Doctor continued, deciding that now he was on a roll he might as well continue, and put an end to this dreadful policy for good. Lizzie decided she would quite like to unleash him upon her own government. "While we're at it, have you ever heard of diplomatic intervention into foreign conflicts? Has it not actually occurred to you that intervening with your military is just going to make matters worse?"

"Well, bahaha, again, I don't think it's really _fair_ to blame us for this, Doctor –"

"Oh but it is!" the Doctor roared, slamming his fist upon the table and making Dicky's cold cup of coffee jump up again. Blaming the government was exactly what he was doing. Blaming the government, and their white western ways, with their shocking attitudes towards everyone who was a different colour to them, or with less money than them. "You are part of the cause of this entire problem, and because of that, it is only fair that you should receive some of the blame.

Dicky looked down at his papers like a five-year-old who had been caught eating the biscuits he was specifically told to stay away from. The sheer force of the Doctor's anger had blown through the room like a gale, leaving the three of them sat, not in an awkward silence, but of an accepting silence, as Dicky was perhaps realising the magnitude of the situation. He still did not look as if he cared, however – he still looked as if he had somewhere better to be.

"The government need to grow up, quite frankly," the Doctor continued. "And they need to start having this conversation – why is it happening? You are _financing_ terrorism, stop being embarrassed, stop worrying that if you admit it's your fault you'll lose an election – because for god's sake, PEOPLE ARE DYING SO YOU CAN STAY IN POWER. People, beautiful, happy people who loved the universe, and who appreciated the beauty of it. And they will _never_ get to appreciate that beauty again. And their loved ones who have had their lives destroyed and obliterated. Loved ones, who will never sleep again, whose lives will be at a mercy to the endless torment you've caused them. Maybe they'll see good days yet, but always they'll have shadows hanging over them, darker shadows than anyone else, and those shadows are because of you! Tomorrow belongs to nobody, we can't change that – but people deserve a better tomorrow than… _this_.

"And you know what makes this even more… skin-crawling?" the Doctor reached into his jacket and slammed a newspaper down on the table, before continuing, his voice spitting with vitriolic anger. "A human goes and massacres a group of Martians living in peace upon this planet, and look what little coverage it receives! And this rhetoric is just making things worse, actually. No mention of the word terrorism anywhere! Of course, he's not _green_ enough to be a terrorist.

"Your fascist media, Dicky, is radicalising the masses, and is hell bent on driving wedges of hate into society – they will tear seven bells out of Martian society, before only laying _gently_ into humanity, when it is humanity committing the dreadful, despicable acts of terrorism. Not only are you causing terror, you are responding to it with terror as well.

"And what's gonna happen if people don't start doing anything about this? The Ice Warriors keep killing, and you keep causing the Ice Warriors, and you produce terrorism, until it grows and becomes a greater cancer in society? What kind of future is that?"

Another silence followed, as the Doctor sat back, running a hand through his hair in desperation. All he wanted to do, was for Dicky to be able to see. It wasn't hard for him to lift his head out of the sand, and start doing what truly needed to be done.

"Doctor," he spoke slowly this time, as it had been impossible to ignore the fury burning in the Doctor's eyes. "I do understand –"

"No, Dicky," the Doctor interrupted, the fire within him leaping back into life. "I don't think you do. There's a war going on above our heads, a much bigger war, a war that makes this look like a row in the back of a pub – not even that – not even a mild domestic, that war, makes this look like a brief exchange of _choice words_. And do you know why that is? Because I didn't act. Years ago, I had the chance to kill Nazism forever, and I didn't! And so many amazing people have died because of it, universes have burned, and are going to burn, because I did not act – and that'll be a day that I regret for the rest of my life."

Lizzie could hear the regret. She could hear it in the way he spoke, the way he commanded the three of them in the room with the sheer amount of remorse he pumped into his pleas of desperation he offered to the cushy government official opposite, who had no need to care. Except – Lizzie looked at him now, and wondered perhaps, if he did.

"And what's going to happen if you continue to allow that to fester in your society? If you allow that cycle to continue, of the terrorists winning, and of fascism rising because of it, and fascist terrorism ruining society as it is at the moment?"

There was a pause, although the Doctor had no plans on letting anyone answer the question. So he continued. "You'll end up where I've ended up, with the universe tearing itself apart. You might get to sit in your tower with your lovely little desk job playing God with people's lives. But everyone else? I have lost people, I have lost such, close, friends, because of idiots like you," he pointed to Mr Hubble, and Lizzie sat there, almost petrified at the force of the Doctor's words. As he spoke, he channelled so much pain, and so much grief, and Lizzie could see the tears manifesting in his eyes, and gently rolling down his cheek, perhaps then evaporating against the heat of his words. She could see something in those eyes, something that could only belong to someone who had seen many dark days.

"And I have no choice but to force myself on, day in, and day out, coping with all the hell the universe throws at me. My wife heals the sick, she goes to some of the darkest depths of the universe to _help_ , and every time I see her, I have to treasure her, because for all I know, I won't ever see her again. She could be killed at any moment. You might be safe, but all of us, every other person in the world is forced onto a knife-edge, knowing that every single day could be our last. And what for? _Why_?

"But you know what? This isn't about me. This isn't about you – this is about _people_.

"It's about the other 100%, everyone who has to endure the consequences of you, with sheer resilience and grit. The people who lost their loved ones in the Fog attack will never have happiness on a plate again in their lives – because grief isn't curable, when it gets you it takes you forever. These people, they will have to fight _constantly_ to salvage any happiness ever again. And they will, for they won't stop fighting – they will do it in the names of the people they loved so much. But you robbed them. You are not just a murderer, you are a thief, because you stole their days. The days that will never come, for them and the people they loved and lost. If tomorrow belongs to nobody, it _certainly_ doesn't belong to you.

"People died. Their potential was sucked out of this world. And their joy, and their happiness, and their love, and it will bless us no more. And you ought to be _horrified_ with yourself, for allowing that to occur. Because the world is a sadder place because of it."

Nobody spoke after that, the Doctor's words casting such a long shadow over the office. Lizzie, who probably wouldn't have said much anyway, was in even more shock than usual, at this unleashing of a side to the Doctor that had, so far, been hidden away from her. She had noticed something in him, right from the very start – there had been a mutual understanding between the two of them, with the two of them perhaps understanding each other in a way nobody else did. Lizzie felt that finally, she had seen the Doctor lift the lid on that subject she had been understanding until this point. She was in shock at how deep it ran through him.

Dicky, meanwhile, was looking sheepish, as he had been for at least 10 minutes. He still looked down at his desk, but the eyes that were eying the filth accumulated on his cup of coffee were now perhaps more accepting. Or so Lizzie had thought, until eventually, Dicky spoke, and said: "I think you should both leave."

It was of no surprise that this was his response. Although Dicky seemed like a hilarious chap, he was a mumbling moron, who was clearly going to go on as he was. Somebody who was going to kill millions. Who is killing millions. Who had killed millions.

The Doctor looked at him, as if to say, 'this isn't over'. Dicky gave him a similar glance. The Doctor stood up, and so did Lizzie, and Lizzie led the way to the door. But before they left, the Doctor offered one passing remark.

"These people were so beautiful. So good. Why would you destroy them?"

And with that, they left.

* * *

"I must admit," Jo said, as they stood on the balcony of the UNIT offices, looking down at the city below them. They were in a typically liberal hypocritical position, Lizzie decided. They should've been down in the city, being active and helping the change that was needed to come about.

"I've dealt with Richard Hubble a number of times," Jo continued. "And he's one of the worst politicians I have ever met."

She said this as if it were meant to make things any easier. It didn't. After all, the Doctor and Lizzie been removed from the Intergalactic Affairs building, and Dicky remained, lording it over from his glass tower. It seemed as if Dicky was not going anywhere anytime soon – however, the rumour-mill was functioning at optimum capacity, and already word had started to spread of Dicky and a major confrontation. Nobody quite knew what, although Dicky had made a statement (on Twitter, along with a poll asking his followers to decide what he should have for dinner) trying to quash the rumours.

Perhaps their hypocrisy, as they looked down below them, highlighted instead the corruption of society – that it was only those who could stand at the top of skyscrapers who could make change happen. Lizzie shelved that pessimistic thought, however, because she herself believed that if people, no matter who they were, wanted to make something happen, then it was always possible.

Once upon a time, Lizzie would never have thought that. She always believed that her life was subject to those at the top. And to be fair – it still was. And for the foreseeable future, it always would be. But she had learned that she could fight against that system – she did not have to accept it.

It was still a terrifying thought, however. That humanity at its purest could not sway the hearts of the cruel gods who played with it. It was clearly a thought that preyed heavy on the Doctor's mind, as he had barely said a word since they arrived back at UNIT HQ. In fact, he barely said anything since leaving Dicky's office. Jo could see it, and other than a few brief words of consolation, she didn't know what to say.

It was at that moment, that someone knocked on the balcony door. Jo nodded, and it opened.

"Mr Cooper here to see you?" Jo's PA said.

"Send him through, Josh," Jo acknowledged. Her PA nodded, and then he left. "Someone is here to see you, Doctor."

Only a few seconds passed, before a little bearded gentleman hobbled out onto balcony. His face was lined and his eyes were sunken, and he was, perhaps, quite shabbily dressed, with a tweed jacket a little bit too big, and baggy trousers, along with a half-untucked shirt. But a red tie was emblazoned around his neck, a great red flag, and although this man was old, and although he perhaps seemed like he was spent, there was something about him.

For looks meant nothing.

There was an elfin presence in front of them, ready to leap into leadership, and take the country to dizzying heights. In fact, the appearance in front of them was not so much of a scarecrow, but instead, the appearance of a Prime Minister. He was the picture of all great socialist leaders, and this little man held himself like a true statesman – more so than any other political figure they had met so far. This was a man who was determined to right by the people, and not determined to stay in power no matter what the human cost.

"Doctor," Jo had noted the Doctor's bemused looks, and so she gestured to the bearded gentleman who had joined them on the balcony. "Mr Jackson Cooper – the Leader of the Opposition."

"Doctor," Jackson strode over to him, and took his hand, and shook it warmly. Jackson greeted him as an old friend. "I've heard about the fantastic work you did earlier today."

 _Fantastic work_ , the Doctor thought. It wasn't like he had achieved anything major. In fact, he had done nothing. He could not bring back the lost, he could not go to those people who had lost, and tell them that everything was going to be okay. Because he knew that it wouldn't be. But he didn't say that – all he said was "thank you, Mr Cooper."

"It'll take a while yet," Jackson admitted. "But thankfully, it feels as if there's hope, that the tide could turn our way. Now you've got the rumour-mill spinning, we're going to table a motion. To stop funding Martian governments that fund terrorism, to create a new intergalactic affairs policy."

Lizzie gave the Doctor an awkward nudge, and he smiled obediently. Although – it wasn't obediently. He smiled because it seemed that things could change.

"We'll take them down," Jackson nodded firmly, a grim determination, but a great optimism, in his eyes, as he looked over at Dicky's tower in the distance. "In the end, we will take them all down… and it'll be for them," he pointed below. "We deserve so much more than this."

The Doctor turned to properly look at the mercurial gentleman beside him. "You remind me of someone," he observed.

"A certain former Prime Minister?" Jackson laughed. "Yeah… I get that a lot."

Lizzie's heart skipped a beat a little then, but she regained herself. Yes… perhaps there was definitely hope yet.

 _OhmygodacertainformerprimeministerIwonderwhothatcouldbe_ – _shush Elizabeth_ , she told herself. Although they had made a start, they still had vast amounts of work to do.

* * *

Lizzie was rather enjoying her cup of tea, 100 years in the future. As she sipped it from its polystyrene cup (except it wasn't polystyrene, as supposedly, it could keep the tea hot for over a day), she felt it seep inside her, warming her. It was as if the heat of the tea made the inside of her warm too – not a raging blaze, but the sort of crackling flames one liked to see on a chilly day in the middle of winter. It wasn't even that wintery, now. In fact, it was the middle of August. But she still felt as if she needed that tea… as if she needed that warmth.

The only difference between her teas and future tea was that this one came along with a strange sense of artificiality. And not that plastic-cup-preservative artificiality either. Something else… as if the world around them were artificial as well, and it had injected some of its effete into the liquid.

 _Oh god_. _Imagine if I was saying this aloud._

Only she could have such an in-depth discussion in her head regarding the taste of tea. In fact, Lizzie hoped that nobody else was privy to her thoughts, otherwise they would get rather sick of that constant discussion going on in her head. Lizzie _also_ hoped that nobody else was privy to her thoughts because they were _her_ thoughts, and she rather liked keeping them to herself. Nobody else's business. Although she was quite content with keeping herself to herself – and in many cases, she knew, in her heart, that it was quite acceptable. However, with certain things, she thought that probably wasn't the most beneficial attitude to take. Although aware of her own awareness, she still couldn't bring herself to act upon it, however.

But something about the Doctor had moved her. Now, there was a part of her that wanted to say things. Perhaps she felt her relationship with the Doctor to be honest, following his emotional pleas – after all, it was as if he had opened his heart to the two others in that room, and although the second person had been an arse, Lizzie thought that, perhaps, she had been able to see inside it. And perhaps it was this newfound honesty that made her… more comfortable. Though no matter how much she tried, she still couldn't. Maybe those thoughts would have to wait until she had finally reconciled them with herself. After all – how could she deal with something if she didn't understand it for herself? The courage would find her… one day.

The sun was setting over the beautiful city, and the people milled around them. There was an air of contentment about, as if, perhaps, there was hope yet, even if the days were still dark. She sat on a bench, on the bank beside the Thames, beneath a wicker canopy, which had fairy-lights weaved through the wood. The setting sun streamed through as well, and she watched as it played against the little white _Costa_ letters on the cup. As she sipped her tea, she allowed the warmth of humanity to reach her as well, sitting back against the bench, and listening to their chatter, their laughter, that general hubbub of humdrum life. And ahead of her, she trailed the little boats floating along the river, people off to far-distant lands, with hope in their heads and dreams in their hearts. She smiled, then, and was happy.

It was at that moment that the Doctor came and sat beside her, and a few moments of silence followed. It wasn't awkward, for once. That was new. The Doctor did speculate whether it had been him opening up that had broken down a few walls, and that they were now on more honest terms. But as he glanced over at his companion, he realised that he knew very little about _her_. Regardless of the events that had led to this hallmark in their relationship, they both enjoyed the silence – a silence of mutual understanding, and of listening to the world. After all… who knew when it would all be over.

" _Everything_ , I suppose," the Doctor began to muse, and Lizzie wondered where he was going. "Everything is artificial, to a certain extent."

Lizzie wondered how he'd known what she'd been thinking, but then she expected he'd wondered the same after all those times she'd been weird and understood what he was thinking. She also wondered what he meant by it – as she looked at the world around her, she felt its realness. It was all extremely vivid. But then, she was reminded of something he'd said to her, a while ago now.

"The Jenga tower of time."

"Yes," the Doctor confirmed.

And it was a reassuring state of mind, to be fair. If everything could change, then there was always hope that something could be done, no matter how bleak everything was. You could always take out bricks, and put them back in another location.

The Doctor spoke again. "Life is on a knife-edge, time is in flux."

What they would both give for life not to be so cruel. For life to be kind.

"Oh, well, we can be optimistic," the Doctor continued, because in reality, that was all anybody had. Sheer optimism. Lizzie sighed, because that counted for very little. The Doctor acknowledged the sigh, but continued on. "For we're not thinking about _the_ future. We're thinking about _a_ future. Perhaps Jo will succeed in lobbying against Martian warfare. Perhaps, Dicky will lose his job. Perhaps the Leader of the Opposition will become Prime Minister. If we can dream, and we can achieve those dreams, then time cannot put obstacles in the way of change. Perhaps… perhaps one day, the people who have lost their family will find some contentment."

They both doubted it would be anything considerable. But at least they could hope. And Lizzie admired his optimism. She truly did, although she was still a bit hung up on life being on a knife edge.

The Doctor decided to speak openly. "I am… lost, I think."

 _We should get tee-shirts_ , Lizzie thought to herself. _Enjoy your stay._

As the Doctor looked at her, he could almost tell she was thinking something sarcastic, even though she'd never say it. However, he had her to thank for being able to accept it. In fact – it had been Lizzie Darwin that had given him hope, that perhaps one day, he might find himself. As the Doctor looked over at her, he thought that she was thinking the same – that she too, was lost. Except her eyes were sadder, and she still didn't have that hope.

Lizzie didn't want to make it about herself. She thought of all the people who, that evening, would be coming to terms with the worst news that they would _ever_ receive in their lives. A loved one, who they had laughed with, and cried with, and who they would never laugh and cry with again. A family cruelly shattered, and the impossible journey that would follow, of trying to make sense of the fragments that remained.

It made her want a family even more, just so she could be thankful. She looked over at the Doctor, and thought that perhaps, one day, they would find one.

* * *

 _The future belongs to none of us._

 _I could die tomorrow, and because life is a cruel and nasty place, it accepts it, and it cannot be changed. Life is on a knife-edge and there is nothing we can do about it, apart from treasure each moment, before the maliciousness of existence can claim it._

 _But, the here and now, as we live and breathe, that belongs to us. We may be suspended, above a pit of unpredictability and randomness and billions and billions of fleeting random chances. And because of that, time is malleable, like… playdough, it can be warped, and changed, and played about with. Tomorrow is not ours, and so we may not be able to change it – but we can change today. If you see a problem with the world, you can do something about it._

 _Everyone can change it, if people can come together. The future does not have to be_ the _future, it can be_ a _future._

 _When the Ice Warriors came to Earth, and we began the revolution, we got the people started. And the people came together, they decided to fight against their white-haired overlords in the skyscrapers. Due to mass pressure, the legislation was passed – intergalactic warfare on Mars was halted, and selling arms stopped. The government looked weak, and hey – perhaps things will change._

 _Because things have to change. The people have been wronged too many times, and after the events today, I found somewhere quiet, and I just cried. Because the people are treated like cattle, the losses of the people are treated worthlessly. On the news, we hear about someone who died in an attack, but none of that can communicate the sheer torment that their family members will face. Nothing will bring back the love and joy of those who were lost, nothing can bring back the sheer potential they brought to the world._

 _And before long they're forgotten about. And it is this, that is the greatest disgrace of all. The government politicises it, the media sensationalises it. But nobody remembers what this is about, more than anything else._

 _The people._

 _The fight will be tough. This legislation may have been passed in the future, but for so many places, such laws are a pipedream. We must bring it everywhere, we must raise the truth. The media is still controlled by fascist monopolies, and their rhetoric continues to radicalise. We must make sure everyone knows about it, and maybe, then, things will change._

 _It is a fight that, perhaps, we have started. But we have not won._

 _We will, though._

 _And we will do it for the lost, and for those who have lost._

With that, Lizzie finished her story, and shut her laptop. Perhaps now, the word was out, and time would begin to change.


	8. 506 The Blood Ties

**PROLOGUE**

How would Lizzie tell someone the impossible?

Well. Impossible. It was a bit of a strong word.

In fact, Lizzie did not believe, after the most recent months in her life, that the word impossible should even exist, since any known definition of the word had been disproved. She'd sat in exactly the same spot, several months ago, when her life beat at the same, monotonous rhythm, and she wanted nothing more than to escape, and yet she was trapped, because of politics, and because of herself. Not that long ago, her life hadn't meant anything, and she'd felt so guilty about that, and so sad. Those were the days when things had felt impossible, as if no matter what happened, it would never be possible to reach what she truly needed.  
But things changed.

Things didn't feel impossible anymore, because she'd seen things that stretched well beyond the realms of what she'd thought was possible. And through that, she'd realised that if she were dreaming, she could make them come true. When she said it over to herself, it sounded awfully clichéd, and slightly cringeworthy. Though, it was easier to use a cliché instead of trying to find words for it. Maybe that was because the words didn't exist, so a cliché was just easier instead of scrabbling around to find some adjectives, a verb and the odd noun to string together in a sentence to help describe it.

Lizzie did not want to keep her clichés to herself, however. She had done that for long enough, and she had loved it, keeping such an amazing secret that wouldn't even make sense to most people. The time was now, to let a big part of her world know, at least. Maggie, her former support worker, was much more than just that. When Lizzie was struggling with the world, and was so stuck in a dark place she couldn't find even the tiniest glimmer of light, Maggie would always, somehow, find some way of getting through to her.

Lizzie realised that Maggie deserved to know. And yet she'd doubted her decision to tell her. Several times. Several times over, she doubted.

Eventually, she decided she might as well go for it. In a moment when she felt good, she decided to bite the bullet, because there would be no better time – five minutes later, and she'd be doubting herself again. And that's where she now sat – across from Maggie, at her kitchen table, a warm cup of tea beneath her, with Maggie's comforting eyes watching her, waiting for her to speak.

It was that terrible pause, that anticipatory silence where someone says something, and then the other person prepares to follow it up but doesn't quite know how. Maggie had told her to go on – and now she was waiting for what Lizzie had to say.

She'd played this conversation over in her head, many times, and she knew exactly what she was going to say; they were going to have a lovely, eloquent conversation about it, and Maggie would believe her and they'd drink tea and all be happy. (That was a thing people often did – scripting both sides of a conversation in their heads as they waited for just the right moment).

But now the moment had come and the planned script had vanished. She decided she just had to go for it.

"I've – I – I've seen the impossible."

Maggie's face did not change. There may have been just the flicker of momentary confusion, but nothing too obvious. But she didn't interrupt – she sat there, ready to listen.

"I travel in space and time."

The words were simple, and surprisingly, there wasn't very much hesitation. And Maggie's expression was now not only one of confusion, but of understanding – as if she were listening to Lizzie quoting from a story instead of telling a truth. Maggie did not speak. She waited, patiently, for Lizzie to continue.

"There's this box, like…a box that's bigger on the inside, and there is this guy called the Doctor, and he's weirdly charming and sad, and a bit mad as well, and together we fly around in time and space, and we –"

Lizzie's voice was running away from her, and she was running out of breath, and it was as if the walls were closing in on her, and in the briefest of seconds she wished she'd never said anything.

"Calm down, darling," Maggie said softly as she reached over the table and placed her hands on Lizzie's. She didn't dismiss anything – Maggie didn't do that. "Talk a bit slower! I'm old. I'm not quite as 'with it' as I was."

Lizzie laughed at that. She had known Maggie would be kind – and suddenly, it didn't feel as if she were doing something so stupid. She felt it was right.

"There's this guy, and he's called the Doctor," Lizzie repeated, more slowly, taking deep breaths. "He's an alien – and, together, we fly around the universe in a magic box."

It would be an understatement to say Maggie wasn't quite sure what was going on.

"Magic boxes – goodness, men do go to such lengths nowadays," Maggie gave her a wink, and Lizzie laughed, shaking her head.

"I'm not making this up, I promise."

"Darling – look-"

Suddenly Lizzie was worried that Maggie didn't believe her. This was what she'd feared the most – that the person she could confide in about anything wouldn't believe the greatest and biggest secret she'd ever told anyone. Ever.

"It's not that I don't believe you," Maggie said, and Lizzie believed that Maggie believed her. "It's just – well – quite a lot to take in."

Lizzie understood. To be fair, if she'd been told about the Doctor over a cup of tea, and hadn't experienced it first hand, she'd have probably thought the same. And perhaps she had not expressed herself as clearly as she might because of her fear that even Maggie might not believe her.

"I'd love to meet him," Maggie laughed. "I mean, Lizzie, what you're saying," she sighed. "I _shouldn't_ believe you. My _head_ is telling me not to believe you because it's—"

 _Impossible,_ Lizzie thought.

"But for some reason," Maggie continued. "In my heart, I _do_ believe you. I've no idea why."

Lizzie hadn't expected this, which was a bit of a naïve judgement on her part. She'd expected her to either take it on the chin or laugh in her face – instead, she'd believed her, but the way Maggie spoke, and the way she looked, it was clear that what she was hearing was not something she could easily believe, and yet she did. Her response was a simultaneous blend of wonder, amazement, scepticism and concern. Maggie sighed and looked away.

"Lizzie, that's just—"

Lizzie took her hands out from underneath Maggie's, and placed them on top of Maggie's, Lizzie's hands now returning Maggie's soothing reassurance.  
"My god," Maggie laughed in realization. "And you – travel with him… in a _box_ …

Right in the middle of Maggie's sentence, there was outside the sound of pottery shattering, several paving slabs smashing in half, and then the sound of something huge thumping against the ground, like an almighty fist punching the Earth.

"What the bloody heck is happening in my garden?!" It was one of those weird moments when something is mentioned in a conversation and then suddenly it happens... as if it had been listening in.

Maggie was already out of her chair and was staring out her window. In contrast, Lizzie remained calm; although she had not expected it, she knew exactly what was going on.

The Doctor had made many entrances, but never one quite like this.

The backdoor was now open and Maggie was gazing out at the garden, the shattered remnants of a garden gnome lying in front of her like a dismembered body. Several shards of paving slab stuck out of the lawn as if they were bits of broken glass, and in the centre of the small garden, was a great big blue police box.  
Maggie's face really was one hell of a picture.

Suddenly, the doors to the box flew open, and smoke poured from the inside, billowing out into the garden and up into the air. The two women saw the faint outline of a figure, fumbling around inside, stumbling out and blinking in the harsh sunlight.

The Doctor, along with his usual outfit, wore a rainbow coloured party hat on his head, daisy chains around his neck, and a gigantic-framed pair of comical blue glasses.

"Sorry," he waved at Lizzie and Maggie, who watched him with absolutely no idea as to what he was up to. Lizzie had never seen him like this before – so gregariously wacky, zany _and bonkers_.

She was about to say something, when he continued to speak. And then it all made sense.

"Number one duty of being a dad! Birthday parties!"

 **THE EIGHTH DOCTOR ADVENTURES**

 **SERIES 5 - EPISODE 6**

 **THE BLOOD TIES**

 **WRITTEN BY ED GOUNDREY-SMITH**

 **TWO WEEKS EARLIER (LIZZIE TIME); 3030 YEARS LATER (UNIVERSAL TIME)**

"I don't know why I bother," the Doctor stood outside the TARDIS, his satchel over his shoulder, ready to investigate whatever it was that had moved the TARDIS halfway across the universe. The Doctor had spent the previous five minutes doing a weird silent pacing, that if audible would certainly be tutting. Lizzie had been watching him at a distance, from inside the TARDIS, sceptical about saying anything.

After a moment, she followed him out of the box, and into a strange metal corridor, that looked a lot like the sort of generic spaceship corridor in sci-fi movies. He closed and locked the TARDIS door behind her. Then the inhabitants of the spaceship appeared.

There were four guards, dressed in black leathers approaching them. They wielded guns as if they thought the two people stepping out of an old wooden police box would, somehow, be dangerous. She glanced at the Doctor next to her and changed her mind. They probably were dangerous. Their spacey blaster guns whirred, and the Doctor raised his hands. Lizzie looked at him and awkwardly did the same.

Then she heard a _clink, clink, clink.  
_  
It was the sound of something metal tapping gently against the metal floor. She heard the sound of footsteps as well – somebody was approaching them. The guards didn't do anything other than continue to point guns at them – they were waiting, Lizzie thought, for whoever was approaching them. As the tapping got closer, the guards made way for the imminent arrival.

Dwarfed by the four burly guards, was a tiny old man, with an oversized lab coat draped over his shoulders. He leaned heavily on a metal-tipped walking cane – it was sleek, and elegant, and the handle was padded with soft leather. Lizzie looked at the Doctor who clearly recognised the man.

"Doctor," he murmured in a throaty voice. "It's… been a while."

"Yes, it has," the Doctor murmured, as if he were hesitant to say anything else. Lizzie glared at at the Doctor with an _introduce me_ sort of look.

"Lizzie," the Doctor responded, "This is Dr Siddiqui."

Dr Siddiqui nodded with a snigger.

"Dr Siddiqui, this is Elizabeth Darwin," the Doctor added.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, _Lizzie,_ " Dr Siddiqui giggled, with no sign of pleasure at all in his gravelly ancient voice. "Follow me."

"Erm… and… a pleasure to meet you too," Lizzie said, basically to herself, with an awkward but friendly smile as Siddiqui turned and walked away, the Doctor and Lizzie following, with the four guards close behind.

"Dr Siddiqui and I go way back," the Doctor continued, and Lizzie tried to picture the Doctor's life before she'd met him. She'd tried to picture it more than a few times in the past.

"Not as far back as the Doctor likes to believe," Siddiqui interrupted.

"We saved Zygons together," the Doctor said.

" _We_ did not," Siddiqui corrected him.

"I know. I was wrong," the Doctor admitted, and Lizzie wondered what he'd been wrong about.

"It was, in fact, your friend – what was her name?" Siddiqui played a game of mock guessing. "Jessica? Jemima? Oh, _that's_ it! _Jasmine_."

The Doctor walked past Siddiqui, looking at the floor as he went. His face was a picture of anger mingled with guilt. He turned left into the room that somehow, he knew they'd been destined for.

"Jasmine died," Lizzie looked sternly at the odious little man. "Along with your decency, it seems."

* * *

There were four of them sitting around a table, while a woman, who had introduced herself as Elle Mthembu, stood next to a screen at the front of the room. The atmosphere was tense, awkward. The one person they hadn't yet been formally introduced to, was the man seated at the head of the table. The only thing notable about him so far was that he was sporting a small goatee.

"Who actually _are_ you people?" the Doctor asked. "I mean… what? A space intervention agency? Intergalactic Mi6?"

"I like to think of us as more of an intergalactic _Thunderbirds_ ," grinned the man with the goatee.

"We're the Shadow Star alliance," Elle told him. "Who _we_ are is of no relevance."

"Actually – it is," the Doctor stated firmly in deliberate opposition. "Because, somehow, _you_ grabbed my TARDIS, and hauled it halfway across the universe."

"Ah," Siddiqui murmured, laughing under his breath. "When I was on board back when Jasmine and myself saved the Zygons…"

"Oh, shut up," the Doctor said, in a way unusual for him.

"Apologies for my little friend," said the Goatee Man, as he smiled icily at the Doctor. Sadly, he doesn't have an 'off-switch'."

"… I took some readings," Siddiqui continued. "I thought they might be useful in the future. And I was right."

The Doctor scowled at him, as if he was so annoyed he couldn't even be bothered to respond.

"I simply… fed them into a computer, and we caught your TARDIS… a fish in a net," Siddiqui gave a gummy smile.

"But – what can you people want with _him_?" the Doctor gestured dismissively towards Siddiqui. "I mean, _look_ at you there! Jarvis Mthembu..."

"Wait! You know who I am?" said Goatee Man, whom the Doctor was now referring to as Jarvis.

"… renowned for his humanitarian efforts. Then there's you, Elle Mthembu – a war hero. Your silver wedding anniversary was a few weeks back. And then there's him – Girish," the Doctor spat out Siddiqui's first name, in a way similar to how Siddiqui had played games with Jasmine's name mere moments ago. "What can you two possibly want with the great Dr Girish Siddiqui, accomplished drug kingpin?"

Elle sighed, and Lizzie felt rather sorry for her.

"You're right. We're a space intervention agency, set up by the people to help protect themselves in a variety of circumstances. If there is an incident with the Planet Makers, we fix it. Some dangerous pathogen outbreak from a science lab, we sort it. Happy?"

The Doctor smiled warmly. "Of course."

"Can we please get on, now?"

The Doctor gestured for her to continue, and she did so.

"What do you know about The Bug?"

The Doctor looked confused. It sounded ominous, though – as if it were a title, a sort of bid to try and sound scary.

"Not much," the Doctor admitted. Elle pointed to the wall, and the holographic screen burst into life with a figure displayed in the form of a Vitruvian man. The bottom half looked humanoid, though the top was more like an insect, specifically a cricket. As Elle tapped the screen, more and more layers appeared on top of the creature, portraying a metal exo-skeleton, and then layers of bug-like flesh, with leathery shields covering thin wings protruding from its back. And then finally, the creature was robed entirely in black, with its head visible beneath a hood in contrast to its cricket-like body, the head was now less humanoid, and more like that of a fly, with great, bulbous eyes crafted of what seemed like a million lenses from a million pairs of tiny fly-sized glasses. Cricket style antennae were visible from beneath the hood as well, and the moving image on the screen showed the creature peering around, its antennae wiggling, sensing something, and guiding the huge eyes in whatever direction the antennae moved.

The Doctor gazed at it. "Fascinating…"

"I thought you'd be impressed," Siddiqui giggled. "I am… it's like an amalgamation of so many different insectoid species. Just…beautiful."

"Not exactly," Elle said, and Lizzie saw the solemn look on Jarvis' face. The Doctor clearly caught sight of their faces as well.

"What is it?"

"The Bug is a terrorist," Elle was blunt, as if that were an everyday thing, a norm. In the current climate, it was.

"Working for whom?" the Doctor asked.

"It doesn't work for just anybody," she continued. "It wages war against the Empire's corruption and fraudulent activities, citing their actions as 'despicable', 'dishonest', and 'criminal'."

"And it's right," the Doctor interjected.

"It's also a white supremacist, anti-LGBTQ+, and almost every kind of –phobic you can imagine," Elle continued, while the Doctor's face morphed into a picture of disgust. _Not so right_. "That's body armour," Elle pointed to the screen. "Made of extremely resistant yet flexible alloys – it binds to him, and it is almost as if it turns him into… well, a bug, basically. It's the ultimate suit of armour, and it turns him into the ultimate terrorist, giving him increased muscular abilities, advanced and alterable eyesight, and flight. This creature has hanged universal marriage activists from the gates of the Imperial Palace. It arrived at an imperial refugee camp and, within an hour and a half, had the local government on their knees. It's final goal? To destroy 'the pitiful imperial elite' and restore 'freedom of speech'. And…"

"It's planning something…," the Doctor finished her sentence for her. Lizzie looked at his face, and she knew what was coming next.

"Yes."

"You want me to hunt down the most effective and most despicable terrorist in the history of the universe? Why?"

"Because you're good at it."

"Excuse me?" the Doctor scoffed.

"The Bug is, on the whole, ignored by the Imperial government. Its crimes are, of course, tragedies – but nothing more. You'll find that its actions are very quickly forgotten, and that the government starts concentrating on something it deems 'of greater necessity'. Evangeline Cullengate herself has _never_ made any attempt to condone the Bug's actions."

"I've heard too much about this Evangeline Cullengate."

"While my position dictates that I must remain impartial, she is vile. And that's why we need you – because if the Bug were a Zygon or a Jarageth or anybody else, I can guarantee the government would rain hell down on them. We want you to find the Bug, and eliminate it, before it does whatever it's planning to do. We've been monitoring the underworld, and we have reason to believe that whatever he plan is, it's huge – some say will be the Bug's greatest attack yet, and –"

 _Welcome to the jungle! We got fun and games…_

We got everything you want honey, we know the names…

The lyrics were coming from the Doctor's satchel, and Lizzie glanced over at him, as he looked around sheepishly. All the eyes in the room were on him, as the muffled murmurings of that iconic Guns N' Roses tune were emanating from his person. Elle stopped talking and glared at him, and Lizzie _almost_ laughed at the intensity and absurdity of the moment.

" _Do you mind_?" Elle could not seem to comprehend that a mobile phone was ringing in the middle of one of her briefings.

"Sorry. I need to get this," the Doctor responded as he stood up and stepped away from the conference table. Lizzie was slightly more fascinated by the fact that he owned a mobile phone. He then walked over to the door, and walked out. All three of them, Elle, Jarvis and Siddiqui were bemused, as the man of the hour had just upped sticks and left in the middle of everything.

Lizzie gave them all a guilty smile, and was about to apologise, when the Doctor popped his head back through the doorway. "By the way," he said. "The ringtone – that was my wife. She, er, changed it."

Then he left again.

Lizzie pulled on her coat and apologised to the dumbstruck ShadowStar alliance, before following the Doctor out of the briefing room. She caught him up as he was almost halfway down the corridor.

"Oh my _god_ – did you just – like, erm – walk out of a meeting where you were asked to help fight the most evil terrorist in the universe?"

She followed him close behind, but he didn't stop walking. It was his _purposeful_ walk, the one he used when he had somewhere else he wanted to be. He seemed to be smiling, though.

"The Bug can wait," the Doctor grinned. "Time machine," he pointed to the TARDIS. Lizzie was hoping he would fill in the verbs he'd dropped. "This can't."

There wasn't much that could make the Doctor drop or abandon everything within his focus without any warning. And then Lizzie remembered the ringtone, and understood exactly why the Doctor was in such a hurry to leave.

"It's _her_ ," Lizzie meant it as a statement but not a question, because she was so sure that it definitely _was_ her _._

The Doctor pushed open the doors, the broadest of grins still on his face. "Yes. I think it is."

Seeing the Doctor so happy made her smile as well, because his face was not just pleased, it was delighted, the sort of delight that fills up one's eyes with joy and excitement and passion –

And love.

Lizzie shut the TARDIS door behind her, and within the blink of an eye, the TARDIS had already taken off.

"I don't know why _now_ ," the Doctor moved around the console, flicking switches and pushing buttons, his steps full of spring and glee. "But it doesn't matter – because she's just rung me!"

Lizzie had heard a lot about Cioné. She was yet to meet her, however. Lizzie hadn't had any idea what to expect, when she'd found out about the Doctor's wife. It was weird to think of the Doctor as a married man, due to his seemingly non-existent ability to keep himself from suddenly running off. Also, as much as she loved him, Lizzie realised that such a trait would make him insufferable to _love_.

"Did she say anything?" Lizzie asked.

"It went through to voicemail – but she gave me some coordinates. And, er, speaking of which…"

* * *

The TARDIS had stopped, and the Doctor and Lizzie stepped out into the centre of Trafalgar Square. When he and Lizzie emerged, loads of tourists ran up to the doors of the blue wooden box and threw coins and bank notes at the ground, as if they were street artists, and this was their magic trick. The Doctor thanked them all – he was jubilant, in a way Lizzie had never seen him before, and it made her so happy to see him playing to the crowd, making them laugh with his sonic screwdriver. It was unbelievable, that all it had taken to get him to this point were some song lyrics as a ringtone.

Eventually, the crowds dispersed, and the Doctor sighed, still filled with the rush of excitement that came from the fun he'd been having.

And suddenly, he stopped.

Because there was a woman looking at him.

And Lizzie knew, straight away, that she was Cioné. They looked at each other the way that lovers look at each other – but old lovers, those with so many years of happiness already behind them. The woman wore a black blouse and black trousers, and a quirky, baggy, floral cardigan on top of it. Lizzie realised this woman was exactly what she'd been expecting. It all seemed so right.

Then she sensed something that _didn't_ feel so right. But before she could properly process it, Cioné walked towards them, surprisingly quickly, not the sort of traditional movie-style slow-motion reunion of a long-separated married couple.

"Ah, darling, and lovely Lizzie," she grinned. Though it was not the sort of smile that said they hadn't seen each other in a long time – it was as if it had only been a few days, and even then, she was in a rush. And even then, she recognised Lizzie. Unless the Doctor had showed Cioné photos, there was no way she could have recognised her or been _that_ friendly.

But that was not even the strangest part of the situation.

Lizzie thought back to the gaze the Doctor and Cioné had shared, and then realised: their eyes were different. The eyes of old lovers, yes. Except Cioné's eyes were those of someone whose love was older than the Doctor's – as if somehow, she'd loved him for longer. Which couldn't be possible.

And then Lizzie remembered.

"Oh! My god! I am dreadfully sorry," Cioné laughed, as she caught sight of Lizzie's face. "I've just realised, we haven't actually met yet. It's fine, you'll do that stuff in a bit! I'm actually from the future," Cioné emphasised the 'future' to try and make herself seem almost jokily mysterious.

"How _many_ years in the future?" the Doctor seemed shocked.

"About… a hundred."

"A hundred?!"

"Ish."

"Ish?!"

"Look, I'm not stopping – but you are. I suddenly remembered something rather important, and you need to be there for it. Long story," she handed him a scruffy bit of paper with more coordinates on it.

"More coordinates?" the Doctor took the paper and slipped it in his pocket.

"You'll see what I mean! Oh, and forgive me if I'm not particularly amicable!"

The Doctor's face fell, as he looked glumly down at the coordinates.

"Well? What are you waiting for?" Cioné ushered them into the TARDIS. "See you later! Or earlier, or something…"

She slammed the doors shut behind them, leaving the Doctor standing in the doorway, looking at where his wife had stood about a few seconds ago, before turning and walking straight over to the console.

Her first encounter with Cioné was provoking quite a rollercoaster of emotions and not just in her alone.

"Are… you all right?" Lizzie awkwardly placed a hand on the Doctor's shoulder.

He reached into his pocket for the piece of paper, and walked over to the console. "Yes – I mean, the coordinates must be for…"

He had no idea, and it was strange seeing the Doctor having no idea. Funny that it was his marriage that brought him more confusion than anything else. Silently, he entered the coordinates into the console, and the machine hummed into life, breathing deep metallic breaths, in and out. And the Doctor was doing much the same.

Then the TARDIS stopped again.

"Doctor," Lizzie began, her voice shaking. He turned to her. "Did it ever cross your mind that the reason she sent you away is because that's 'your' version of her?"

Excitement wavered across his face.

"I mean – I think, like, that version of Cioné is from your future. And, this is a time machine, like, so maybe you're just the wrong version that she's not looking for… or something."

The Doctor strode up to the doors where she stood, and hugged her. She reciprocated, kind of awkwardly.

"You're too clever"

She blushed, and broke off the hug. "I think she's out there."

"Yes – I think she might be. I don't know why I was so worried," he dismissed his previous thoughts. "I think it's because – well, when you lose people, you worry it might happen to someone else."

Lizzie nodded. "I get it."

* * *

 **THE BX7Z5 INFIRMARY (somewhere off the coast of Spacetropolis) SOMETIME IN THE 52ND CENTURY**

As soon as they stepped out of the TARDIS, they were greeted by the almost-deafening sound of "Ode to Joy". _Beethoven_. It seemed a bit random, but before Lizzie had time to even look around, a woman, who looked like a nurse dressed in blue scrubs, rushed straight up to them.

"Oh, good, you're here! Cioné said you wouldn't miss this for the world! Just follow me," and she walked away.

The Doctor looked around at wherever he was, with the cacophonous strains of "Ode to Joy" booming through the antiseptic corridor, and its almost as loud squeaky floors. Like something in a hospital, Lizzie thought. Then, she caught sight of the holographic noticeboards "encouraging" people to take part in the various groups and workshops and… antenatal classes.

Lizzie was not usually one to exclaim out loud, but the sudden realisation of what was going on made her swear.

"Come on! She can't hold the baby in much longer!" the nurse called over to them.

The Doctor came to the same realization as Lizzie, and his face went white. He followed the nurse, and glanced out of a large hallway window that looked out into space. Lizzie also looked at the view – they were on some sort of space station, and there were other branches of it, branching out from where they stood. A cluster of galaxies was visible as far as their eyes could see.

The Doctor had left Lizzie, and was following the nurse as she moved down towards a door at the end of the corridor.

"Cioné said it's always awkward when time travel is involved!" the nurse said as she opened the door, and the Doctor walked inside, followed by Lizzie, who suddenly realised she was being thoughtlessly intrusive, and was about to turn on her heels and leave, when she realized that the bizarre nature of the situation was fundamentally irresistible and she had to stay.

Cioné was there, as they'd expected, lying in a hospital bed – in the birthing position. Her fists were clenched, her face red and covered in sweat, and she was groaning and muttering curse words under her breath. "Ode to Joy" continued to blast from a set of speakers in the corner of the room, making it nearly impossible to hear what was really going on. A midwife waited at the… 'business end'.

Cioné was giving birth.

"OH!" Cioné screamed at the Doctor. "What time do you call _this_?!"

"What do you mean what time do I call this?!" the Doctor ran over to her and grabbed her hand, while Lizzie stood awkwardly in the corner observing the situation. "When did this – I mean _– what_?!"

"You _were_ there for that bit," she spoke through gritted teeth, before letting out another scream of agony.

"Yes, alright, I know that," the Doctor admitted, though he wasn't exactly going to argue with her for slagging him off, as he was a bit more concerned about the fact she was giving birth.

"And who's – ow, ow, ow, ow, OWWWW," Cioné took in several breaths, panting and huffing, engulfing as much gas and air as she possibly could. "And who's THIS?" she pointed at Lizzie, screaming the last word out of agony not anger. "No offense darling, I'm sure you're lovely _…_."

"Erm," the Doctor looked back at Lizzie, and then back to Cioné. "Lizzie…this is Cioné. Cioné… Lizzie."

"Lovely to meet you, Lizz– FOR GOD'S SAKE! THEY SAID THIS BLOODY MUSIC WOULD HELP!"

Lizzie reached into the Doctor's satchel and grabbed the sonic screwdriver, pointing it up to the Beethoven-booming speakers. A shower of sparks erupted in the corner of the room, and the midwife dodged the falling metal shards of what had been blasting the iconic finale of Beethoven's Ninth symphony, mere seconds before.

"Thank you dear," Cioné gave her a warm smile (as warm as it could be when spoken through tensed facial muscles).

"You never _mentioned_ this?" the Doctor gestured to her… state. Now even he was laughing at the absurdity of it all.

"Look, I'm sorry," Cioné apologised. – but, you know, you're going to be…a …!"

* * *

 **TRAFALGAR SQUARE - LONDON - 2017**

"…A dad?!" the Doctor exclaimed, as he sat by Cioné on the steps in front of the square's great fountains, taking in the news. Lizzie sat with them – their relationship was so beautiful, she thought.

"Yes, a dad!" Cioné looked delighted, but the Doctor just looked confused. Happy for sure. But mostly confused.

The Doctor would be a good father. At least, Lizzie thought he would be. She wondered how their lives would work – after all, the Doctor had a baby to look after – and to love, and to mentor, and to cherish, until they grew up and up and up, until they weren't a baby anymore, and they were cleverer and wiser than him. Then she felt kind of selfish that fearing the loss of adventures together was the first thing that had come to mind – but she wasn't upset. If their travels did have to come to an end end for some reason, she would be so happy if _this_ was the reason.

As she watched the Doctor and Cioné laughing on the steps of Trafalgar Square, it made her feel even better – that these two lovely people were going to be blessed with a child, to bring them even closer together.

She wondered what life would be like for a Gallifreyan child. Did they… grow up like humans? Go to school? Do the whole teenager thing? Lizzie tried to imagine a teenage version of the Doctor and then stopped because it got too weird.

Happiness.

That's what she was watching – happiness. Moments like this were the ones that needed to be treasured, when the world would seem as if nothing could go wrong.

* * *

 **THE BX7Z5 INFIRMARY (somewhere off the coast of Spacetropolis) - SOMETIME IN THE 52ND CENTURY**

Cioné continued to speak in between her great, heaving breaths, while the Doctor was apologising for the fact he hadn't been here sooner.

"I am so, so, sorry," he kissed her hand, though she didn't seem to care since she was busy pushing an 8-pound baby through her – anyway.

"I've been here ten hours, you stupid man," she said. "Punctuality, it was never your thing."

"You were the one who was late to the wedding," the Doctor countered.

"Hmm… _true_."

Lizzie listened to them talk, like the married couple that they were, and she turned to the door and opened it. The Doctor looked to her as she left – it was a look of appreciation – but also one of confusion, as if he wanted her to stay, because he didn't know what to do next. She gave him a reassuring nod, that he'd be able to do this. Not just this bit – but all the rest of it as well – the days and years that would come after. The Doctor smiled in understanding, and Lizzie slipped through the door, out into the corridor.

It wasn't much later, following an increase in the volume of Cioné's screams, that Lizzie could hear the sounds of a baby crying; that almost unearthly cry from a new-born and the Doctor emerged from the hospital room, smiling. It wasn't his big, broad, grin from earlier – instead, it was almost bittersweet. Parenting was a job for life, she'd read somewhere once, and the Doctor's face reflected that.

"Do you want to come and see her?" the Doctor asked. Lizzie nodded, and picked up her coat, and walked into the room. Cioné was already cradling the baby in her arms.

"Hello Lizzie," Cioné looked up from that beautiful, pure, innocent face, and over to her. "Would you like to hold her?"

Lizzie didn't know what to say – she'd only just met Cioné, and already she was holding her new-born child. The Doctor's new-born child. But, of course she said yes. There wasn't anything else she could say. She nodded, and made her way over to Cioné, where gently, she received the tiny baby into her arms. Lizzie sat down on the chair in the corner of the room, watching the little girl as she slept, with no worries at all, no cares in the world.

"Lizzie… meet Iris."

Lizzie smiled at her – she always smiled at babies. Lives that had only just begun. People who had the most potential – who could change worlds, universes, in fact. Like a book, but with nothing yet written inside it, but with the pen poised and ready to begin. Lizzie watched Iris as she slept, and her heart fluttered. She thought of her own life, and of growing up. She remembered being at the helm of that particular book, and wanting to fill it in quicker – and then life became complicated, and the book became too hard to write or read.

Sometimes, there were hopeful glimmers, though, and Lizzie thought of how the Doctor and Cioné had laughed, as they'd prepared for the whole new life they were about to share.

 _All of that to come._

Lizzie thought of the huge journey Iris was beginning, when Iris opened her eyes from her nap – oh, the days of midday napping.

For now, though, things were good.

Iris was beautiful.

Lizzie looked up, and the Doctor was standing over her, his phone at the ready.

"Smile," he said.

Lizzie smiled at him, Iris in her arms, and the camera flashed.

"Wonderful," the Doctor checked out the photo on his phone, savouring the moment for as long as possible – now he had this moment forever held in a photograph.

* * *

 **TRAFALGAR SQUARE - LONDON - 2017**

"I can't believe I didn't find out about it sooner, though," the Doctor said as he laughed along with this older version of his wife.

"I left a reminder on a post-it note on the fridge for about a hundred years," Cioné giggled, sending the Doctor into further fits of laughter. They were an eccentric pair, but nobody minded, least of all Lizzie – London was a city full of eccentrics. But although the two of them were so perfect together, Lizzie could tell that at this moment the two people in front of her weren't the same people – that is they weren't from the same time.

Lizzie had no idea how time travellers fell in love or whether a time traveller could still love a future version of their beloved. She assumed so, because Cioné from the future, the one in front of her now, the one who, as she had discovered, was the mother of a grown-up Iris, still loved the Doctor. The only difference was that Cioné had had more years to love the Doctor.

Then Cioné turned to him again and asked a simple question, "Why are you here?"

"Aren't I allowed to visit my wife?"

"Of course you are – but we wanted to keep our lives on the same timelines as much as possible, didn't we?"

"Yes – I know."

"So – where are you? In Iris' timeline, I mean, at this point?"

Lizzie reached into her pocket and grabbed a scruffy little chart she'd made for herself – it was like currency conversions, with the Gallifreyan age down one side, and the human age down the other – or as close as it was possible to get. It wasn't an exact science, but the Gallifreyan aging process roughly corresponded with the human one.

"She's still a child. A young child. Although, for you, you've only just sent me to the birth, that happened years ago, for me. And… Iris is sixty-three now," the Doctor tried to arrange the order of events in his head. Lizzie glanced at her age-chart. 63 – Iris was approximately six human years old. Lizzie also set about trying to keep track of the timelines.

So there was their first meeting in Trafalgar square, with the future Cioné. Then, the Doctor and Lizzie had gone back in time to the birth. Then, Lizzie had gone back to Cioné's TARDIS with the Doctor and Iris, where –

* * *

 **CIONÉ'S TARDIS – NOT LONG AFTER THE BIRTH**

"Sshh, sshh," Cioné gently rocked the newborn back and forth in her arms. "That's it, it's alright. Mummy's going to keep you safe."

Cioné's TARDIS was lovely: in contrast to the Doctor's minimalist approach, and despite the fact that her TARDIS shared similar bookshelves, lining the walls, and crammed full of old and dusty tomes, Cioné's TARDIS was warmer, more like a home, with its wooden floorboards that creaked in that familiar way whenever you walked across them, and a tartan rug in the centre, a rug that Cioné had made herself. And, unlike the Doctor's TARDIS bookshelves, with its single photo almost hidden amongst all the books Cioné's bookshelves were filled with such a mass of photos and quirky ornaments that almost rendered the books invisible. And, there was one entire shelf devoted to a collection of weird, jar-like containers, and another shelf filled with teapots, each sporting its own uniquely hand-knitted tea-cosy. On the hat stand by the door hung a warmly-coloured knit scarf and a few snuggly-looking, hand-knitted pullovers. An old-fashioned hi-fi set sat on top of a chest of drawers, and on the other side of the console room, were several great coral-like pillars stretching up to the ceiling.

"I like the coral," the Doctor observed, when he stepped into the TARDIS.

"I know! I redecorated."

They continued through her homely console room, down some steps, and into a recreational living area similar in décor to the console room, but with a big battered and very comfortable-looking sofa in the middle. There was also a mantelpiece, prominently displaying photographs of Cioné and the Doctor, and a few photos of Iris that they had taken before they'd left the hospital. Each of the lamps in the room sported a pastel-coloured lampshade that softened their bright white light into soft, warm oranges and pinks.

While Lizzie sat on the sofa, Cioné tried to rock Iris to sleep in a wooden rocking chair near-by, and the Doctor stood at the mantelpiece, propping up some of the unframed newer photos against the frames of the others. Lizzie felt rather awkward as she gazed at the photo from the hospital of herself holding the newly born Iris in her arms.

"Shall I make some tea?" the Doctor asked.

"Oh, I could murder a bottle of wine," responded Cioné.

"Are you sure?" the Doctor looked concerned – he wasn't sure about the protocol for new mothers and alcohol.

"Well, they said Beethoven would make the birth easier, and they were wrong."

The Doctor took the hint, and left the room in search of a bottle, leaving Cioné and Lizzie to it.

"I hope, you're like, okay, with –"

Cioné was looking at her with great understanding. "Putting you up on the mantelpiece?"

"Yeah," Lizzie laughed, because Cioné's response was so warm and lovely and kind that Lizzie's concern seemed suddenly ridiculous.

"Lizzie," Cioné sat next to her. "I was the one who asked for it."

That _was_ unexpected.

"But… why? I mean, I didn't-"

"Do you realise what a difference you've made to him?" Cioné placed her other hand on Lizzie's knee. "Sorry, that's not too personal, is it? I'm feeling quite sentimental, right now, so if I go too far, do tell me to stop."

Most people, Lizzie _would_ have asked to stop, but…

"Lizzie, when I married the Doctor, he was so very sad. He'd lost everything. Everyone he loved, gone. He married me – and that made him happy. Because he'd found love. But I saw him during the wedding reception, and he still looked so sad. Because it was at the wedding that he parted company with one of his best friends. He was devastated – I could see it in his eyes, because the Doctor is terrible at hiding his emotions. I don't think it matters what incarnation, the Doctor's naturally a very emotional chap."

It was true – Lizzie had learned to identify the Doctor's mood simply by his breathing patterns.

"But today," Cioné continued. "He was so different. So full of life, and he was laughing again. That was you, who did that. You brought him back to us."  
Lizzie began to protest, but Cioné shut her up.

"We need you, Lizzie. All three of us do."

* * *

 **TRAFALGAR SQUARE - LONDON - 2017**

Lizzie ran it through in her head again – they'd arrived in London, where they'd met future Cioné. _Then_ the Doctor and Lizzie had gone to the birth, then they'd gone to Cioné's TARDIS to settle in, and then the Doctor had dropped her off back home. Lizzie had thought about telling Maggie about her adventures with the Doctor, but decided against it – it could wait.

That's when it got _really_ weird, because for about two days, the Doctor had appeared every half hour, grabbing Lizzie's hand with a joyful "come with me!" and taking her into the TARDIS to see Cioné and Iris. And every time he arrived in her flat, he looked just a little bit older – although it wasn't that noticeable; it never seemed to be with Gallifreyans.

And then, later, for another two days, Lizzie had gone on non-stop visits, to see Iris – but although those visits were in two days for Lizzie, they all took place over the first sixty-three years of Iris' life. And every half an hour, Iris would look just a little bit older, because for her, and for the Doctor, it had been years. There was a weird bit of tension between Lizzie and the Doctor at first, because he always hugged her, since, for him, it had been years since he'd seen her last, even though it'd only been half an hour for Lizzie. Eventually, she got used to it, and just pretended it had been years for her as well.

It was strange, though, watching sixty-three years pass in two days. Not just with Iris, who, in that time, had grown from a new born baby, into the Gallifreyan equivalent of a six-year-old girl. But, with the Doctor and Cioné, because whenever she spoke with them, they were always a little bit older and a little bit wiser, and she could see it, even more obviously: Lizzie felt like an observer, watching the first few years of the life of a family, as they grew and grew and grew – all three of them. While she hadn't ever changed.

So – they had arrived in London, met future Cioné, seen the birth of Iris and gone to Cioné's TARDIS, and then Lizzie had gone back home while the Doctor spent his years with Iris and every half hour or so (every year or so for the Doctor) the Doctor had popped into her life to take her to visit Iris. Then, because the Doctor was curious (he wanted to know about Iris' future, and Cioné had declined his request), he had picked up Lizzie and taken her back to London at exactly the same time that Cioné was giving them the information regarding Iris' birth just after they had come from the briefing about the Bug. It almost made sense.

Mostly.

Except, that wasn't even the weirdest bit.

The next bit was _really, really_ weird.

Future Cioné (whom Lizzie had realised was far enough into the future that her Iris was in her late-teens), suddenly glanced at her watch, and her face filled with dread.

"I need to go," she said, grabbing her floral cardigan and wrapping it around her.

"Why?" the Doctor exclaimed.

"You know why. Or at least, you will in about thirty seconds."

And then Cioné waved at them as she ran off into the crowd.

It was such an abrupt goodbye that it left the Doctor glancing around, just as confused as he'd been all those years ago, (all those days ago for Lizzie), when Cioné had ushered him into the TARDIS so he wouldn't miss the birth of their daughter. Suddenly, emerging from the crowds that future Cioné had just disappeared into, was Cioné, wearing completely different clothes, and with a little girl in tow. When the Doctor saw them, his face fell into his hands, because even the Doctor, the guy who spent all his time whizzing about in time, was struggling to fathom such a peculiar and abrupt evolution of events.

"Ah, Hubbie. Here you are."

"Lizzie!" Iris ran up to them, and Lizzie knelt down to hug little Iris.

"How are you, lovely?" Lizzie asked.

"I'm super-duper-awesomesauce!"

Iris' use of language always made Lizzie smile. In fact, Iris herself always made Lizzie smil as a rule– she was such a bundle of energy, laughter, and enthusiasm, and an ever-present brightness.

Lizzie, the observer, had quickly learned that Iris didn't care what people thought of her, if they thought she was a bit peculiar, because Iris was dreaming of a time when she would discover new universes, and didn't care that the Time Lords had banned the exploration of foreign universes _without_ an executive warrant, or that existing technology couldn't take her that far, or anything like that. She was a child. She wanted to explore, and to discover. She loved everyone, she trusted everyone, and she was learning avidly and eagerly, and even when she made mistakes, she never let those mistakes hold her back.

"You were just there," the Doctor looked back at the spot where future Cioné had stood.

"No I wasn't," Cioné said.

"The timelines have converged," the Doctor said with more than a little concern. And Lizzie, for once, understood his technobabble: The Doctor, at his point in time, was back with the "right" Cioné and Iris – that is the Cioné and Iris from his present timeline. It was all sorted out again. Lizzie had just about gotten a grip on all of it and presumed that the reason Future Cioné had come here was because she knew that the Doctor would be here, because Past Cioné – the one standing in front of Lizzie now – had met up with a past version of the Doctor – the Doctor now standing in front of Lizzie – when the Iris now there in front of them was a little girl. And so, Future Cioné knew that if the TARDIS was here in one time, it would be easy to find in another time, because the Doctor's TARDIS seemed to have a penchant for going to the same place multiple times.

 _She really needed a break from all this stuff._

And then, as if reading Lizzie's mind, Cioné asked, "Do you fancy a drink? I'm parched. There's a café over there."

* * *

Lizzie sat opposite Iris as they each sipped their milkshakes – Lizzie's was strawberry, and Iris' was chocolate, because for some reason, children had a thing for chocolate, regardless of what form it was in.

"How old are you?" Iris suddenly asked. Lizzie was taken aback by the question, but children just said the first thing that came to mind, regardless of how irrelevant or personal it was.

"Why do you want to know?" she gently challenged the little girl.

"I'm 63 now," Iris said.

 _Older than me,_ Lizzie thought and then asked out loud, "When did you turn 63?"

"A while ago. I'm going to be 64 soon!"

"Wow!" Lizzie grinned. She loved speaking to children, and pretending to be amazed at something that wasn't really amazing to her, because it took her back to the days when, as a young child, she found _everything_ amazing. "Are you going to have a party?"

"I'm going to have a HUGE party," Iris waved her hands around to indicate the sheer size of her planned birthday bash.

"And you're going to have birthday cake?" (Cake was Lizzie's secret pleasure.)

"A massive chocolate one. Daddy said he would make it bigger on the inside!" Iris paused and then continued. "I asked you because you never look old."

Lizzie stopped for a moment, a bit startled. Then she realised Iris was referring to her earlier question about how old Lizzie was, because that was another thing kids did – they had funny conversations, where they would ask and answer questions of sequence, like the conversation was being cut and pasted and swivelled around in a random new order. It was as if they were finding out for the first time how people spoke, how they interacted, how it all worked. Iris was at the age when she was 'feeling' the world for the first time, trying with all five senses to understand as much of it as she could, and when whatever she discovered, it was sure to be wondrous.

Lizzie knew that at some point, they'd have to explain to Iris why Lizzie never looked any older to her. They didn't think it would happen for a while – but Iris was clever. At some point, they knew the little girl would have to understand that Elizabeth Darwin, a constant presence in her life, had actually only known her for a few days.

"I'm 24," Lizzie told her. Iris became lost in deep calculations, as she was trying to work out how old Lizzie _should_ be, and was clearly struggling.

"That doesn't make sense," Iris realised.

Lizzie smiled sadly, and hoped Iris wouldn't notice.

 _Life doesn't make sense._

* * *

Ten minutes later, the Doctor, Cioné, and Iris were on a bus (as was Lizzie, but she was sitting slightly behind them, to let the three of them have as much time together as possible - that sort of thing was important for families). As soon as they'd climbed aboard the big-red-grumbly-machine, as Iris called it, Iris had dashed straight to the top of the stairs, because she'd been so desperate to travel on a bus with stairs and two levels!

"Honestly," the Doctor muttered. "You give them bigger-on-the-inside, and they only want to ride on double-decker buses."

The bus had rows of three seats running down one side of the second floor, and the Doctor, Cioné, and Iris had decided to sit on one of them – the Doctor by the aisle, Cioné by the window, with Iris between them. Lizzie was a few rows behind them on the opposite side of the bus; she smiled at the Doctor's little family, as the bus slowly hissed away from its stop. It travelled silently because it was electrically powered, which impressed Iris as well, because "noisy-noisy spaceships" weren't like that. And as they drove, Iris pointed at things out the window, desperate to know what they were. She saw the "big bonging clock" and "the palace where her royal majestyness" lives. Cioné pointed out things as well, and when Iris saw them, her mind wandered and wandered and wandered, into all sorts of little worlds, the sort of little worlds that only children can ever truly understand.

The Doctor looked sad, though. London, to be fair, was a painful city for him. Cioné mouthed an "okay?" to him, and he nodded, and she gently placed a hand on his shoulder. Eventually, the Doctor joined in with their natterings about the massive city around them, as the Doctor did impressions of the Queen coming out to the balcony of Buckingham palace to wave at them.

"I haven't been this happy in years," the Doctor suddenly said. Iris nodded in agreement and rested her head on her father's shoulder, because children do that thing where they try to be like their parents. The Doctor leaned back into the seat, content with his life for what seemed like the first time in years. For now, he was happy to spend his days with the two people he loved the most.

The Doctor that Lizzie had first met would never have been this content. He was too nervous, even paranoid about something happening that would yet again take everything away from him. There were no shadows looming over him anymore, shadows that haunted him wherever he turned – they were still there, they always would be, but he didn't have to worry about shadows anymore. Instead, he worried about the people who cast the light.

He'd grown up, just as Iris had grown, and perhaps _because_ Iris had grown with him.

Everyone grew up, in the end.

* * *

 **THE DOCTOR'S TARDIS (LATER THAT DAY)**

Lizzie sat in the leather seat by the console, while the Doctor stood over the controls, piloting the machine to take her back home. The day had been lovely: they'd seen some of the best tourist attractions, including Madame Tussauds and the Aquarium - Iris loved the fish, and Lizzie had a picture on her phone showing Iris struggling to contain her wonder and excitement as she stood next to a massive Great White shark in the tank behind her. They'd all walked around the city, and when Iris started to complain about her legs hurting, they stopped off at a chippy, and the four of them ate chips together while watching the sunset glowing orangey red over the Thames.

"Are you alright?" Lizzie asked the Doctor, who had been uncharacteristically quiet for some time. His long silence continued for a bit, as he flicked a switch on the console, and the familiar sounds of the great ship's rotor filled the control room. She nearly asked him again, but knew that he'd answer in his own time. And then he did.

"Yes. I've had – I've had an amazing day," he said. "And I have an amazing life."

There was a pause, and Lizzie knew what he was going to say next.

"It's just … sometimes I feel as if… as if I don't have any connection to anything at all. It's not that I don't love my life, because I do, and some days, I am so, so content, more than I ever have been before. But there are some days when that isn't enough, and it's like… I'm somewhere else, cut off from them, even when I am standing right there with them. And occasionally, I wonder whether they'd be better off if I just …"

"No."

Her interruption had come as a surprise even to herself, because she didn't think that she could be so blunt. But it was like he had awakened something inside her, like an instinct of some kind, and it just made her suddenly blurt it out that firm No. The Doctor looked surprised as well.

"I mean … I've been there myself," she added, as she Lizzie looked at the floor and then back at him again. "But Iris is way, _way_ too special. And the good days, the ones like today, don't they mean something?"

"Yes, they do –"

"Don't they mean _more_ to you than you might realize?"

"I… I suppose, but –"

"Like, I get how you feel, but you know … you can't let your fears get the better of you."

"But what if I'm making her life…"

"Doctor. Listen to me, please, for once, even if you don't pay attention to me ever again. I saw her today, with you, and I saw how happy you made her. That's special, and – that's something she won't get anywhere else from anyone else. I mean, so, whenever your fears get the better of you or your life gets particularly dangerous and complicated, _remember_ that there is a little girl waiting for you, a little girl who's asking her amazing mum every day, "When's Dad coming home?" And those words – just, please – just _imagine_ those words and what they mean, because there are so many kids who ask that question, and so many who never get an answer, or the right answer, so many who never see their Dad and never will."

The Doctor leaned back against the bookcase, his face lost in thought, his mind unsure.

"I'm just sick of time travel. I'm sick of what it's done to me and… to those… around me."

Lizzie thought for a few moments – she saw before her the hollowed-out time traveller, and she saw how sad he was. She wanted to help him, so much.

"Go to her," Lizzie was blunt once again. The Doctor stepped forward from the bookshelves, and walked over to her. "Please," she insisted, "Because – she really does deserve it."

The Doctor opened his arms and hugged Lizzie tightly. It was warm and completely honest, because the two of them, in those seconds, understood each other.

"Thank you," he whispered.

 _You're welcome_ , she thought.

Then he danced back to the console and pulled down the lever.

"See you in, oh, I'd say… a few years."

Lizzie smiled at him, a "you're a really good person, you know" kind of smile.

"I've got one hell of a birthday party to organise!" were his last words to her as he left.

* * *

 **TWO WEEKS LATER. LIZZIE TIME**

Lizzie and Maggie had stood in the garden, watching the Doctor stumble out of the TARDIS. A party hat was perched on his head, and silly string covered his jacket. Maggie's face was a mix of shock, and stifled laughter, as she caught sight of his necklace of daisy chains and his great big blue sunglasses. Lizzie remembered, then, the events of two weeks ago, after she and the Doctor had left London, and how the Doctor had said he had a "hell of a birthday party" to arrange. A 64th birthday party, for Iris.

"Hello!" the Doctor said to Maggie. "Lovely to meet you."

"We haven't even been introduced," Maggie responded as she winked at him, and as Lizzie glared at her, she stopped, mouthing a 'sorry' in Lizzie's direction. "Seriously, though, whoever you are, I'm going to need new bloody paving!" she added, desperately trying to sound severe through a strangled chuckle.

"Sorry," the Doctor smiled sheepishly. "Sometimes the stabilisers don't quite function – I'm working on it."

"Well," Maggie said to Lizzie as she looked at the blue "box." "You certainly weren't lying, Lizzie."

The Doctor looked at her, as if he was asking about _what_ she apparently wasn't lying about and Lizzie realised that the Doctor and Maggie had not yet met.  
"Maggie, this is the Doctor I was telling you about before… well, yeah, _that_ Doctor. And Doctor, this is Maggie, my support worker."

"I'm basically her mother," Maggie squared up to him. "So you'd better take care of her."

The Doctor recoiled slightly, intimidated, before Maggie finally burst into fits of laughter while nodding towards him. "Look at him! _I_ actually scared _him_!"

Lizzie was about to say something, when she realised he was wearing those massive blue sunglasses, and decided against it.

"Maggie, I'm dreadfully sorry, but Lizzie's a guest of honour," was all the Doctor said.

Lizzie was a _what_?

"For _whom_?" Maggie seemed incredulous.

"For my daughter. It's the big 6-4 and I don't want to disappoint."

"What's he bleating on about?" And then to the Doctor, "Are you dim or…?"

"Maggie, it's their aging process, they age… erm…," she struggled to think of a way to put it tactfully, "… _differently_."

Maggie nodded as if she was at least partially understanding that, but with a suspicious expression on her face. She paused for a beat, and then added, "Would you like some tea?"

"I would," the Doctor said. "But… I really must go."

Lizzie tried to offer a few words of her own in all this, when Maggie looked at her with great sadness in her eyes.

"Lizzie, you've just told me about all this amazing stuff, love. Please, Doctor – can't you stay? Just for a bit? I'd love to hear more.

"I'll only be five seconds, Maggie" Lizzie said reassuringly.

"But you're just _saying_ that, Lizzie. You know it won't really be five seconds."

"No, Maggie. Trust me."

Lizzie kissed the old woman on the cheek, and stepped into the box. The Doctor gave Maggie a bit of a friendly wave, but it was rendered absurd by the giant party sunglasses and the daisy chains.

Then… the box vanished.

* * *

 **CIONÉ'S TARDIS**

The Doctor's TARDIS materialised inside the console room of Cioné's TARDIS, and the Doctor leapt out of the doors, and into to a child's dream birthday party. _His_ child's birthday party. As soon as Lizzie stepped out of the box close behind him, there were kids all around her, chasing each other with cans of silly string, and laughing and playing, without a care in the world…or universe.

As Lizzie stepped out into the chaos, the Doctor crept up behind her with what seemed like a giant water pistol, something like a cosmic super-soaker, and all the kids saw him. They let out loud gasps of awe as silly string jettisoned from the blaster at a velocity incomparable to any kind of silly string device Lizzie had ever seen. In fact, it actually reached the far wall of the console room, and the Doctor shifted his aim to the ceiling, creating great webs of silly string, as if there were brightly coloured spiders nesting in the roof of Cioné's TARDIS.

When the kids saw the sheer force of the device, they knew that whoever wielded that dreaded weapon would be the ultimate winner in their silly string battle, and so, within seconds, there was an army of children surrounding the Doctor, all desperate to play with it.

The Doctor tossed it over to a shy looking boy and shouted, "Go get 'em, tiger!"

The boy grinned, and the children started running again, shrieking with delicious terror as the great silly string cannon once again leapt to life, and Lizzie was left marvelling at the science behind Time Lord toys.

The Doctor led Lizzie down the steps and into the warm and cosy living area. On the table in the centre, was a chocolate cake, with '64' written across the top in chocolate buttons. The cake was pumped so full of butter cream icing, it was bulging out the sides, and Lizzie saw the mark of a small finger that had, presumably, decided to take a cheeky fingerful of icing from the cake before it was served. Paper chains decorated the beams of the room, and a throng of birthday cards clustered on top of the mantelpiece.

"Lizzie!"

And suddenly Iris was hugging her, and Lizzie had to kneel down to reciprocate the hug properly, as Iris was still so much shorter than she was!

"Hey!" Lizzie smiled at her. She had to talk loudly over the noise of the kids. "How's the party?"

"The bestest fun!" Iris grinned a big cheesy grin. "Daddy said you'd be here for the cake."

"And I will be, " Lizzie reassured her.

"Yay! I need to go."

And Iris vanished. She'd be back in a minute; she was just slightly concerned about the kid who was suspiciously fiddling with the microscope she'd received as a birthday present.

Lizzie drifted through the room and into a kitchen area, where Cioné sat, slumped over a table.

"Are you okay?" Lizzie sat down opposite her.

Cioné looked up, her hair a mess, and with a suspicious stain across her jumper. "This is the most stressful day of my life."

Lizzie smiled one of those half-laughter sort of smiles. "Iris is loving it, though."

"Yeah," Cioné said. "Yeah, she is. As is the Doctor."

 _Maybe having a bit too much fun,_ Lizzie smiled to herself at how happy he was, even if Cioné looked shattered.

"A good night's sleep, that's what I need. Kids always seem to take forever to go to sleep the night before their birthdays. You get to my age, and quite frankly, they become a lot less exciting."

Cioné was simultaneously one of the most down-to-Earth and hilariously quirky people Lizzie had ever known, and Lizzie loved her for it, as Cioné poured tea from one of her many tea-cosy-covered tea pots. Cioné, meanwhile, was thinking the very same about Lizzie, while trying not to spill tea all over the place.

"I shouldn't be too grumpy," Cioné sipped from her mug. "It means a lot to see Iris so happy. It means a lot to see them _both_ so happy."

Cioné had been smiling for what seemed like ages and ages, especially when the party had first started, and the Doctor had donned those utterly mad, utterly HUGE, TARDIS-blue glasses and that garishly coloured party hat, and all the kids had laughed and joked with him. But as Lizzie watched her, she was worried that Cioné would be one of those people who worried so much about her family, that she would forgot about herself. The bags under Cioné's eyes only heightened Lizzie's concern.

"Look after yourself," Lizzie said, perhaps rather abruptly, from Cioné's perspective.

"Hmm? Oh, me? I do," Cioné shrugged it off.

There was a brief silence. The radio was on, and there was a news report that the two of them sat and listened to it for a bit:

 _"In the last few minutes – it – has been confirmed – Evangeline Cullengate has been elected the Prime Minister of the Empire and its surrounding colonies. Someone who joined the race for the premiership as a controversial outsider, with her ideas either reviled or revered, has won the election. We're expecting a statement from the Cullengate campaign within the next few minutes, and a speech from Mrs Cullengate herself should follow in the next few hours."_

" _That's_ what concerns me the most," Cioné pointed to the radio. "That Iris is going to have to grow up in a universe like this. A universe where hatred is winning."

That thought alarmed Lizzie as well.

"And it's not helped by the war," Cioné continued. "That's why it means so much that we do the best for Iris that we can – to love her and teach her what's important."

Cioné had seen a lot. When she was a doctor, she would arrive on war-ravaged worlds and find the dead bodies of far too many children. It had been hard enough before Iris' birth, but ever since she'd been born, it had grown worse, to the extent that whenever she saw a dead child, she'd seen them as probably close to the same age as Iris. And then she would think of the disgusting Dalek creatures who had killed them, and the slimy Time Lord bastards at the top of the greasy pole who had sanctioned the war, and she would worry for Iris, who would have to learn about the world through information given to her by those sorts of people. That's why Cioné had tried so hard to teach her about the world and the universe, and what it was _really_ about, and not what those people blinded by power and hatred and money believed it was about.

In other words, it was not what the Daleks, the Time Lords, and Evangeline Cullengate thought it was about.

"And you do an amazing job," Lizzie complimented her.

"As do you," Cioné interjected. It took Lizzie a few moments to register what Cioné had said, and then Lizzie completed her observation: "Honestly, Lizzie, Iris loves you."

"... _what_?"

"She's known you all her life. And you've taught her a lot."

For Lizzie, it had only been a few weeks. And yet, now Cioné was telling her she'd done so much for this girl she hardly knew. In a way, it was the highest compliment Cioné could ever bestow.

"And so has the Doctor," Cioné responded as she watched the Doctor through the kitchen door, as he was laughing and doing some stupidly funny impression in front of Iris and all her friends, which had reduced them to fits of giggles. "Honestly, though. 64 years. Feels like it was yesterday."

 _Yup…_ Lizzie thought.

"It's worth it, though," Cioné said, thinking back to that day when she was listening to what now had become _that utterly_ _awful_ Beethoven piece that she had once loved. Her love for the piece had not survived the experience of hearing it while she had been giving birth to Iris. Then she thought forward to the day that Iris would be way too big for birthday parties like this, and realised she had to hang on to these moments, as much as she possibly could. "Anyway. Time to cut the cake. It's bigger on the inside, you know?"

 _Time Lord parties,_ Lizzie thought. They seemed like a blast.

* * *

 **IRIS' HEIGHT CHART: 1 METRE 5 CM**  
 **AGE (HUMAN YEARS, LIZZIE'S ROUGH CONVERSION): 9**

The timelines for Lizzie had become so confused, she'd almost given up. Now, she was back in her flat, waiting for the TARDIS to arrive again. The Doctor and Lizzie were following the same system as before, pretty much – he'd drop her back home, she'd wait five minutes, and he'd turn up in his TARDIS. But for him, it would be months later. And he'd take her to see Iris and Cioné, for whom it too would be months later.

Time was passing in a bizarre way for Lizzie, though.

Although there were only five minutes between each trip – five minutes Earth time – it happened that every five minutes, Lizzie would experience one day, or, more often, one whole day and night, as she'd sleep (or _try_ to sleep) on the TARDIS. Then, she'd arrive back on Earth, and only five minutes had passed. Being a time traveller was _strange,_ to say the least; and then again, it must've been even stranger to be Iris, the daughter of a time traveller, with people passing in and out of your life at a rate completely different from your own aging process.

That one day, they'd gone to the Golden Sun Spires theme park, but it was a whole planet, an entire world, as a theme park. It was the longed-for dream of any young child like Iris, who wanted to live as much as possible, and to have as much fun as possible, and who would happily ride rollercoasters all day and eat junk food and drink enough fizzy drinks to completely dissolve their teeth. So, Golden Sun Spires was most certainly Iris' heaven, evident from the moment she and her father, the Doctor, swaggered on and staggered off the largest rollercoaster Iris' height would allow. Iris ate gleefully from a cloud of sticky candyfloss on a paper cone core, while the Doctor looked as if he were ready to vomit at any moment. When the Doctor had looked to Cioné as the adult required to accompany Iris on the ride, Cioné had ridiculed the suggestion, citing it as one of the benefits of having a husband. Now, she watched the two of them, laughing as the Doctor flopped down on the bench.

"How was it?" Cioné asked her daughter.

"It was SO amazing!" Iris crowed with delight as she stood in front of the bench, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet, barely reining in the hyperactivity typical of a little girl. "I'm surprised my candyfloss is still here though because it was the coaster was the fastest thing ever!"

Then Iris turned to her dad and laughed as he clenched his stomach, and remarked with unsettling precocity, "But, he's so old that he can't cope with it anymore."  
The Doctor's age had recently become the butt of a good many family jokes.

"To be young again," the Doctor sighed, as he sat down. Cioné placed an arm around him, and Iris ran to Lizzie and reached out a hand.

"Come onnnnn Lizzie! You said you'd go on a ride with me."

"You've been on all of them!" Lizzie said as she sipped from her gryzymberry-flavoured milkshake (a flavour Iris had picked out, and one which Lizzie had taken a liking to).

"Not _all_ of them," Iris retorted, with her cheeky grin and puppy dog eyes, pointing at the "ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE" big wheel looming in the distance. It was like the London Eye – maybe even bigger, in fact. Lizzie gulped when she saw it. "Pleeeaaasse?" Iris pleaded.

Lizzie looked at the imposing wheel, then back at Iris, and realised that she'd have to be incredibly cruel and heartless to say no.

"Oh – come on, then." And off they went, hand-in-hand.

* * *

Lizzie and Iris made their way over to the big wheel, stopping to buy another candyfloss for Iris on the way, and they were quickly seated. The wonderful thing about the Golden Sun Spires was that it had eliminated that plague of all theme parks: queueing. Each ride operated in several different dimensions, and groups could be shunted off to a new dimension at the flick of a switch – meaning you got the quintessential theme park experience with all the screaming and sickness, whilst not having to spend hours standing in line while being swarmed by wasps.

It did not bode well that already, Lizzie was growing dizzy as she walked up the steps towards their compartment.

The two of them sat down, and a beefy-looking alien with leathery orange skin and suckers on his forehead locked the compartment door.

 _No turning back now…_

Iris looked up at Lizzie, and she saw that she was scared.

"It's okay," Iris gave her a smile, and her hand crawled over to Lizzie's. Lizzie took it, and Iris gave it a squeeze.

"Sorry," Lizzie apologised. "I – I – shouldn't be the scared one!"

"We're all scared of certain things," Iris reassured her, looking out as the leathery-skinned alien entered the control box, trying to distract Lizzie from seeing him flick the switch and growing even more anxious. "But we can get through it, if we have someone with us who loves us."

Iris was absolutely the sweetest little girl Lizzie had ever met. Children were often remarkably good at being wise, and Iris was no different. In fact, Iris seemed even better at it than most. Maybe it came from her parents, who were both incredibly wise. Even so – Lizzie believed that children in general are just the best at advice. Maybe it was the fact they looked at the world through unblinkered eyes, and thus, in a strange way, understood the world around them more than anyone else, because they only saw what was there, and they didn't have bad memories to distort their vision. Lizzie hated it when people wrote off children as less significant than adults, because they were, in fact, wonderfully perceptive.

The giant wheel began to move. A sudden reaction caused Lizzie to squeeze Iris' hand even tighter, and yet Iris sat there, calmly eating her candyfloss. Slowly their compartment climbed upward, but Iris never let go of Lizzie's nervous hands.

Eventually, Iris looked up at her. "See? You're doing fine."

"Y-yeah. I am," Lizzie confirmed, although she still had not yet looked out and over the edge of the compartment. She could feel the cold, though – the cold of being off the ground and in the chill of the wind as it blew through the now seemingly _very little_ metal box separating them from the abyss.

"Look out the window," Iris urged bluntly, with very little emotion.

"I – I – ," Lizzie spluttered, still looking down at her lap.

"Go on," Iris whispered. "For me."

It was an odd situation to be in, taking advice from someone who looked so much younger than she was, but was, in fact, so much older.

"You won't see the stars otherwise."

A few seconds passed before Lizzie finally looked out.

She could see that they were approaching the highest point of the wheel's journey, still continuing on the upward climb, but not yet at the top. And Iris was right – the sky _was_ beautiful. It was bright sunset orange, with the sun's rays reaching out from the setting ball of fire and enveloping the entire sky, as if it were embracing it, and keeping it safe forever. At the same time, though, the stars shone through the burning sky, glinting and sparkling through the dimming light, and turning the sky into the most wonderful painting. Then Lizzie looked down, and saw the theme park spreading for miles around her and Iris. It was an entire world, after all, so it made sense that it was such a vast expanse. But she was surprised to see so _many_ people so actively engaged in this park, this world. She spotted a young couple with two young children, leaping from ride to ride and having the time of their lives. And she saw an old man and woman as well, sitting under a tree of beautiful rose blossom, just savouring the moment for as long as possible.

From their compartment, she saw life. Below and above her, life at its finest.

"It's beautiful," Lizzie murmured out loud, before realising it.

"I _know_ all those stars," Iris whispered in awe as she pointed at a great big one that, after the sun, seemed so breathtakingly close. "That one is the _Argolisis Herisius_. And there, that's the _Sperial Luminacious._ They also call it the Great Lighthouse, because ships in the Sperial system use it to make sure they don't crash into asteroids."

Lizzie sat back and watched the stars as Iris told her all about them. She seemed to know so much – and they seemed to be one of Iris' great passions. And then Iris asked Lizzie a question, completely out of the blue, about something else entirely: "Why are you nervous?"

Lizzie had noticed that although Iris was fast approaching that age when she would stop asking the first thing that came into her head, occasionally there would be a question so urgent that it would squeeze through the filter. Lizzie looked at Iris in momentary confusion and Iris helpfully supplied some much-needed context: "Sorry, it's just … something Dad said the other day."

"What did he say?"

"Sorry, I-"

Lizzie was worried she'd upset her, and rapidly apologised. "No, it's not your fault, don't worry."

"Mum always says I ask way too many questions _out loud_ ," Iris explained, as she continued to gaze out the window, perhaps trying to undo the awkwardness of the moment. She wasn't very good at it or maybe "inexperienced" was a better word for it.

"Your dad spends half his time wandering around the universe asking questions out loud. There's nothing wrong with it at all, Iris."

Iris turned back to her, the awkwardness gone.

"I want to be like him, one day. I want to see the stars. I mean, I already can _see t_ hem, but I mean I'd like to see them up close, to go there, experience them."

"You already travel around, though. With your mum and dad."

"I know – but one day, I want to have a TARDIS of my own."

Big plans were such an important part of childhood. Big, silly, stupefying and unbounded aspirations were the things that kept children going, and Lizzie believed that there was always something profound that was lost when those aspirations disappeared in the face of sometimes bitter reality or the discouraging "advice" of well-intentioned adults. Opposite her was a little girl, filled with dreams of her future, and desperate to grow up. Perhaps all children were like that, though – they wanted to grow up so quickly, and when you told them to enjoy their childhood, they'd just laugh, and keep on dreaming of what they would do, who they would be, where they would go, when they were all grown up.

"I think, perhaps … like, I don't really _know_ ," Lizzie said. "But I think the reason I'm nervous, is because I don't have big things that I want to do, like you have – you really want _to see the stars_. And one day, you will. And – maybe – maybe I need a dream like that."

Iris nodded, approvingly, even though she wasn't really sure what Lizzie was so emotional about, because she, Iris, here aspirations aside, was still just a child.

"What dream will it be? What sort of dream do you need? What will it be?"

Lizzie looked out the window, and she wasn't scared at that moment.

"I don't know."

Iris took her hand again. "Don't be afraid. You've got _aaages_ to find it, Lizzie."

* * *

 **IRIS' HEIGHT CHART: 1 METRE 31CM**

 **AGE: 12 (HUMAN YEARS, LIZZIE'S ROUGH CONVERSION)**

Her dad had built Iris her own private observatory. Her mum's TARDIS, which currently floated around in space as the boring old normal space-time ship grey cylinder thing, now had a sort of metal railway track coming out the side, on the end of which was a battered old leather seat that her dad had retrieved from his own TARDIS. He'd mounted it onto the end of the track, and with the pull of a lever, it could be rolled forward, far out of the TARDIS and into the surrounding space. The chair could be spun around and locked in position. And in front of the chair, mounted to the mechanism in a similar way a gun was mounted to a gunship, was a great telescope, directed and reading well out into space.

Iris had dreamed of having a way of watching the stars, and when she mentioned it briefly, in conversation, her dad had decided to build one for her.

And it was amazing.

If she wanted to explore the universe, she could sit in her chair, roll out into space, and watch the stars through the far-reaching lens on her telescope. And even if she didn't want to explore the universe, and just wanted to be alone for a bit, she could do the same, and escape for a while. It was perfect. And she loved it.

Iris sat there now, alone, observing the stars in front of her. It was one of those times when she was not there because she wanted to watch the stars. Instead, she was there because, for some reason she was feeling anxious, and she didn't know why, because her life was fine.

However, she had started at the academy not too long ago, and it had only recently dawned on her how big the universe really was. Occasionally, she saw people on the news, like Evangeline whazzit, or the Daleks (Mum had to explain those to her, and the Time War, and that had certainly made her afraid), and she felt terrified that this was the world one day she'd have to walk out into alone. She thought of Lizzie, and how ages ago they'd been on the Big Wheel, and she'd asked her why she was so nervous, and Lizzie had said it was because she hadn't dream of anything big like the dreams Iris had shared with her. Yes, it was ages ago, when she was just a little girl, things like what had concerned Lizzie so much- lacking big dreams and plans- didn't matter to her then because she didn't actually know about them or understand them – but now she did. And now it made everything she'd ever dreamed and wanted now seem so far away.

What had troubled Lizzie so long ago had now become Iris' biggest worry – that she, Iris, was no longer dreaming of anything big to work towards. That her awareness and fear of the realities of the universe had almost inevitably trumped any dream she could ever dream.

And then, there was a comforting voice coming from behind her.

"Fancy some pizza?"

Iris glanced around, to see her mum standing there at the door of the TARDIS, holding a plate of pizza.

Iris nodded, and Cioné wobbled her way across the metal rails to get to Iris in the chair.

"Honestly, I don't know why Dad couldn't have put some kind of… gangplank on this."

Iris smiled at her mother's frustration with her father, and received the warm plate of pizza.

"Budge up," her mum urged her and Iris did as she was told, shifting in her chair a little bit to make room. She was still small enough to fit both of them in the chair at once, though it was becoming a bit of a squeeze. They managed it, though. Iris solemnly took a bite from a large slice of pizza. It tasted delicious, and as she took a long sniff as well, she savoured the taste and smell of the pizza in all its crispiness and tomato-yness.

"What's up?" Cioné asked her.

Iris didn't say anything for a bit and then …"Nothing."

"Now – I know that's nonsense, because usually, you'd bite my hand off if I presented you with pizza, instead of accepting it with such a glum face."

 _Was it not okay to be glum sometimes?_

"Iris – I get it if you want to be on your own at tmes. You're getting to that age now where you're going to want some time to yourself. We all do, and some of us never grow out of it. So, it's fine. But what I want you to know, is that I'm always here for you. No matter how bad it is, no matter how much you think being alone is for the best, just remember, you can _always_ talk to me. Or you can talk to Dad, or Lizzie, or anyone else…"

Iris looked up at her. "Thanks Mum. It's just – I don't even know…. It's scary, that's all."

She wasn't lying – Iris had decided she wasn't really one for either keeping secrets or making big sentimental speeches. They just came out as a 'big jumble-ish' of words, something that she was pretty sure Lizzie had once said once.

"Okay," Cioné put an arm around her daughter.

"It's like – those stars there. That's like, billions of things happening out there. And that's just scary."

"I know," Cioné patted her daughter. "I know. But remember – I know it seems dark, and scary. But you've always got people here who will protect you."

"I know. And I'll protect you too!" Iris smiled shyly and rather goofily, and Cioné saw the love and hope in Iris' eyes, and how she genuinely meant what she'd said, as her daughter added, "I'll protect you super-dupily forevermass." And Cioné smiled, in quiet awe.

* * *

 **IRIS' HEIGHT CHART: 1 METRE 42CM**  
 **AGE (HUMAN YEARS, LIZZIE'S ROUGH CONVERSION): 14**

"Happy Christmas, darling," Cioné kissed the Doctor as he sat up in bed.

"Merry Christmas," the Doctor replied, his eyes dancing with childlike joy. Cioné knew how much he loved Christmas. There wasn't another time of year that could rival the happiness and euphoria he felt at Christmas. But even so, it was a joy tinged with sadness, and every Christmas, Cioné would see him, looking wistfully out the window at the stars. Christmas was always difficult for everyone, in a way, because everyone lost people, and Christmas was a time meant to be shared with those people. But for the Doctor it was worse – he'd actually lost someone at Christmas. He'd lost Robin. And she knew he still missed her, and always would. It broke her heart to see someone she loved so much be so sad, especially at his favourite holiday, but it was what it was. And then two minutes later, he'd be laughing and joking again. That's who the Doctor was, though. So many people, all in one.

It was early, and there was the expected knock on the door. Thankfully, it was not as early as it _used_ to be when Iris would wake up at _stupid-o'clock_ on Christmas morning, and Cioné and the Doctor would rise from bed, zombie-like, and trudge through to the lounge of Cioné's TARDIS, to open presents. Even so, it was early enough for all of them, but the Doctor and Iris didn't seem to care, even though Cioné had always liked her sleep. She used to joke about how she could 'sleep for Gallifrey'.

"Hello love," Cioné said, as Iris peeped her head around the door. "Happy Christmas."

"Happy Christmas!" Iris responded happily as she walked over to them and kissed her mother on the forehead, before hugging her Doctor. She climbed over them, and lay down between them. Cioné reached down under the bed, and pulled out a rather crudely wrapped present.

"First prezzie of the day," Cioné passed it to Iris. "Sorry it's so awfully wrapped," she gave her daughter a guilty look. "Wrapping It turned out to be a nightmare!"

"The wrapping doesn't matter, Mum," Iris grinned, pulling off the paper to discover a knitted item of clothing of some kind, and when Iris pulled it out, she realised it was a beanie hat. A blue and white police box beanie hat, in fact!

"Well – you're always saying how much you love that my TARDIS is a police box," the Doctor said.

"It does fit, doesn't it?" Cioné asked. "I knitted it myself." She was rather proud of herself, especially when Iris pulled it on over her head – and it fit perfectly.

"Mum – it's beautiful," Iris laughed, looking at herself in the mirror at the end of the bedroom. "Thank you."

"Well – it's my pleasure," Cioné kissed her daughter. "Thank you for being the most wonderful daughter."

Iris awkwardly shrugged off the praise in that typically awkward teenager-y way, and then the Doctor, as some kind of sudden impulse drifted over him, tossed back the covers and leapt from the bed. He whipped on his dressing gown, and stood proudly, bubbling with excitement. Cioné and Iris watched him with slight trepidation, because the last time the Doctor had looked like this, he'd blown up the kitchen.

"What is it?" Cioné asked, and she tried to look intimidating but couldn't help but smile at him and his craziness.

"I'm not going to be able to keep it a secret from you for much longer, so we'd better do it now," the Doctor opened the door to the bedroom. "Ladies…"

Iris climbed out of bed, followed closely by Cioné, who was tying up her dressing gown. They followed the Doctor as he made his way down the corridor and towards the lounge.

"What is it, dear?" Cioné asked.

"It's a surprise! Or, at least, it will be, if it stays quiet."

That was even more concerning.

Eventually, they arrived at the living room, and the Doctor leapt inside theatrically. He was such a good dad, in that way. He could look like the most whizzy-mad professor, and then become the zany dad any child dreams of while also being so easy to confide in.

 _Two people at once._

The Doctor was now out of sight.

Iris approached the door to the living room, and gently stepped inside. They'd decorated already – and it had been quite magical, with a great Christmas tree in the corner, covered in tinsel and lights and baubles and little kooky decorations from all parts of the universe hanging from it. Paper chains hung from the ceiling, and fairy lights in Christmas colours of green and red were wrapped around the framed photos _and t_ he mantelpiece. But now there was a fully-functioning, log-burning fireplace with a fire crackling away inside the space below the mantle. And, on the carpet in front of, Cioné had made herself, was a funny little metal box.

Iris had no idea what it was, but it looked more like a robot than a box, with a funny little head, and little ears, and an antennae-like tail poking out its behind.

That's what it was like.

A robot dog.

"Hello mistress Iris," the dog spoke in an adorable little computerised voice, breaking up each individual word.

Cioné heard Iris' thrilled exclamations, and the voice of the robotic dog, before she'd even stepped into the room. When she finally did, she wasn't even sure what to say.

"Is that a…?"

"Cioné, Iris," the Doctor began the introductions. "Meet K9."

"Plea-sure to meet you, mis-tres-ses," K9 said.

"Hello K9," Iris grinned, kneeling down in front of him, and patting his metal head and tickling him behind his metal ears. "Wow, Dad, I can't believe you got us a _dog_!"

"He is lovely," Cioné admitted.

"I tried to wrap him," the Doctor said. "But he didn't appreciate it."

"Wrap-ping goes a-gainst my ba-sic de-fence pro-to-col, Doctor-master."

"Sorry, K9."

"Apo-lo-gy accepted, Doctor-master."

And together, they had the most magical Christmas day. They ate and drank and danced, and then they watched Christmas telly, because Christmas telly was always great. And they enjoyed all of this, together.

They enjoyed being a family.

* * *

 **IRIS' HEIGHT CHART: 1 METRE 51CM**  
 **AGE (HUMAN YEARS, LIZZIE'S ROUGH CONVERSION): 16**

The Doctor was making some repairs to his TARDIS, and he was lying there, underneath his console, a pair of strange looking goggles propped up on his forehead. Iris sat in his leather chair, her feet up on the console, her eyes fixed on her mobile phone. Her fingers had grown remarkably dexterous at texting, and her dad always ridiculed her for her ability to send a lengthy text message in a unit of time expressible in seconds.

Iris probably had something better to be doing, like completing an astrobiology assignment that was due last week, but she could spend ages sitting here, switched off from the world, just hanging out with her dad. They hadn't talked about anything particularly useful. They had talked for a bit about science-y stuff, because they were both very good at that. Well, her dad was exceptional. She was just all right, she thought – but, in more recent years, she had discovered that it had become her _passion_. Yes, she'd known stars were her passion for many years, but it was during the last twenty years or so of her life, that her passionate had evolved into what she had started pursuing properly and intently in her studies at the academy. Although, at this moment in time, it was feeling like she'd spent near- infinite amounts of time focussed on it.

So, it was good to just come home in the evenings and switch off. The same went for Saturdays as well – Saturdays like the one they were living right now. There was something especially wonderful about Saturday mornings, a sort of cheerfulness everywhere, when everyone was just pottering about doing their own thing, or somebody was preparing to do something truly exciting they'd been looking forward to for ages.

Eventually, as conversations often did, it drifted onto into the area love and relationships and similar stuff.

"How long have you been married to Mum now?"

"Erm… too many years to count," the Doctor responded from his position under the console.

"But you're still so happy."

"Yeah," the Doctor murmured, as he soldered two stray pieces of wire together. "We really are. Very happy."

Iris had, over her teenage years, learned a lot about her father, and his reputation. Thankfully, it had come from her dad himself, and her mum. They'd explained his roles in various conflicts, especially during the Time War, and they'd explained to her about the time he had fought God. She was grateful she'd heard it from them – she didn't know how it would have affected her to hear it from anyone else. And it wasn't always easy, because she'd come to realise her dad had what one might call a chequered past, and that he'd made a lot of enemies. Occasionally, very occasionally, it felt intimidating, as if she had… something to live up to.  
Most of the time, she tried not to pay too much attention to such thoughts, because both her mum and dad had been great at explaining to her that she had _her_ life to live, as she wanted, and she was deeply grateful for that knowledge as well. It struck her that, if her dad could have such a happy relationship, then it seemed that anyone could fall in love.

"Is it clichéd to say that she was 'the one', for you?" Iris suggested to her dad. If she could have seen his face, she imagined he'd be looking at her incredulously.

"Do you really expect _me_ to know if it's clichéd or not?"

"Point taken."

"But yes – she was the one," the Doctor said, still fiddling with his machinery. "And eventually, we all find that person. The… one person who means more than anyone else."

Iris nodded approvingly.

"Problem is, though," the Doctor added, with a soft laugh to himself, "Men are not exactly the brightest when it comes to relationships."

Iris took a deep breath. "Then…I guess it's a good thing for me then that girls _are_."

The Doctor continued lying under the TARDIS console for a few seconds working quietly on whatever it was he was doing, before he realised what Iris had said and slid out from underneath, to respond face-to-face.

"You're…," the Doctor stood up in front of his daughter, suddenly realising how much taller than her he was.

"Gay?" she finished his sentence for him. "Erm… yeah."

The Doctor nodded, mostly as a bit of conversation filler.

"Are you… cool with that?" Iris asked tentatively, perhaps even a little fearfully, because she wasn't sure how he'd react. Well, she was _pretty_ sure; she thought he'd be accepting, because both her parents were those kind of people—open-minded, kind, respectful of difference. But Iris had been waiting to bring up the subject with him for some time now, and she'd been looking for just the right moment, even when there never seemed to be one, so she decided to create one, and it was now. She'd already told her mum a while back, and so now she just had to tell her dad, and hope he was just accepting as she had been (and her mum had been totally amazing about it).

The Doctor looked down at the floor and then up again, and looked Iris straight in the eye.

" Iris …" the Doctor placed a hand on her shoulder.

"I mean, it's okay if you're not, well, it's not really, but…"

"Do you _really_ think I wouldn't be cool with it?" And the Doctor hugged Iris, gently but tightly, lovingly, and Iris hugged him back. It was like he was trying to communicate all his acceptance towards her through the power of a hug, and if that were possible, it seemed to be working, because Iris felt so happy.

Happier than she'd felt in a long time.

* * *

 **IRIS' HEIGHT CHART: 1 METRE 57CM**  
 **AGE (HUMAN YEARS, LIZZIE'S ROUGH CONVERSION): 16**

This time, when the Doctor had arrived to collect Lizzie, he did not seem happy. In fact, he had not said a word to her for a good few minutes, until she eventually asked him what the matter was, and where they were going. And, the Doctor had corrected her – it was not where they were going, it was where _she_ was going.

"Babysitting duties," the Doctor told her. Lizzie scowled, even though she didn't mind, although it was a bit annoying that the Doctor felt he could just pluck her out of her own life and get her to babysit for him.

"Iris is old enough to look after herself, though, isn't she? I mean, like, if you're trying to protect her-"

"You're the only person she seems to hold even a modicum of respect for," the Doctor said as he pulled down a lever with more force than usual, and the TARDIS even gave a small whine, almost as if it were reacting to his aggression.

"Oh. Erm… right. Okay."

She didn't want to ask about where this was all coming from, because she had a feeling she would find out sooner than later. Low and behold, Iris was sitting on the sofa, looking up at them, glaring at her father.

"Are you going to tell me what this is about, now?" Iris stood up and walked over to the Doctor. He reached into his jacket pocket, took out a letter and slammed it down on the counter. Iris looked up at him, still with no idea what was going on, waiting for him to elaborate. Cioné hovered by the door, looking as if she were ready to go out somewhere, although, by her expression, not somewhere particularly nice.

"Truancy." The Doctor basically spat the word out. Iris rolled her eyes because she knew, now, exactly what he was talking about, but just couldn't be bothered to deal

"Don't roll your eyes at me like that," her dad replied.

"All I did was skip a few classes."

"It was more than a few," the Doctor said bluntly, as he gestured towards the letter.

"I was bored! Okay?"

"No! It is not OK. You're talented, Iris. You're so intelligent, and I hate watching you waste it all like this."

"It's no worse than anything _you_ ever did," Iris murmured.

The Doctor's eyes blazed, just for a second, and Lizzie was genuinely worried for Iris. "Excuse me?" he asked, rather too calmly.

"Nothing, don't worry."

"No, please, go on –"

"Doctor," Cioné spoke abruptly, as he stepped forward, placing a hand on his shoulder. "I really don't think that's necessary …"

"I want to know what she just said…"

"I _said_ it's no worse than anything you've ever done," Iris replied, only louder this time. "You've spent your whole life running away, so don't criticise me for doing the same."

A thick silence descended on the room, and the tension was almost blood curdling. So thick was the silence, it could have been cut with a knife. The Doctor didn't look as if he were going to say anything. He just stood there, seething, and when he finally opened his mouth to speak, Cioné intervened.

"We need to go, Doctor."

He started to follow her, then turned to his daughter. "We'll talk when I get back – from the meeting that we are about to have with your head of year. Lizzie will be babysitting."

"I'm old enough to look after myself!" Iris protested.

"This letter suggests otherwise."

The Doctor and Cioné left, and Lizzie was standing awkwardly in the corner of the room. Iris looked at her, and rolled her eyes again.

She was rather good at eye-rolling.

15 minutes following this confrontation, Iris sat on the sofa in silence, watching the blank screen on the TV, as if somehow she could discover the power of telekinesis a and turn it on. In fact, Iris had been ordered _not_ to use any electronics, and the Doctor had deliberately unplugged the TV and taken her phone, and Lizzie was sitting in the kitchen, playing some pointless app on her phone, and thinking she should probably go and say something to Iris, but she couldn't think of anything helpful. So, there was a stony silence between them – which was unusual, because the two of them were usually very close.

Eventually, Lizzie thought of a possible conversation starter, and drifted slowly into the room next door, where Iris was still sitting, now dramatically slumped over, and very bored looking.

"He'll come round in the end," Lizzie said.

Iris didn't say a thing, but Lizzie moved closer and perched on the edge of a low chest of drawers. Eventually, Iris sighed, and turned to face her.

"He's just… such a _hypocrite_. He can be such a stupid, petty man sometimes, and he genuinely makes me want to…," she stopped, seething quietly, and Lizzie moved over to the sofa, where she sat down next to Iris.

"I just think that what you said to him, just hit too close to home," Lizzie said. Her more recent visits with Iris had changed, because she was no longer talking to Iris like she had when she was a child, when Iris would be amazed at everything Lizzie said. instead, Iris would talk to Lizzie like an adult, and realise had come to recognize and understand and even identify with Lizzie's own inability to function in society, in the world around her.

"Yeah…" Iris admitted. Lizzie had a point.

"He goes off on people, sometimes, and loses his patience and his temper. The Doctor is kind of – like, I don't know. Most of the time, he's genuinely one of the nicest people ever, but sometimes he turns, and it'll be for some… stupid reason, like this."

"But my skipping classes is not that stupid a reason, though," Iris said. "The academy and my studies mean a lot to me…but… I just get so _bored_ , sat there, in a classroom, all day, every day."

"But you're clever. Like – _really_ clever."

"First thing, I'm not, really, and secondly, if I was that clever, I wouldn't _have_ to like it. Point is –my life at the academy is boring me. I just want to … leave… but only for a little bit."

Lizzie had been there, in that place, in that mind set, more than she cared to admit, except, she had dealt with it in a different way than Iris.

"My dad sent you here because he thinks you'll talk me around… but you won't."

"And, well, erm, I respect your decision…."

Was she condoning truancy? She had no idea.

"No, Lizzie. I mean – you won't _try_ to talk me round _._ Because you understand. You get me, and you get him."

"Yeah – well, Iris. It is important that you stay in school, just for a bit … " Lizzie was quickly interrupted by another Iris eyeroll. "Because even though you know everything, you actually don't. Like – sorry, that was way too arrogant, I mean, just stay for a bit longer. And then… the universe is yours."

Iris looked up at her, and Lizzie saw that she was crying.

The little girl that sat next to her wasn't a little girl anymore. She was a young woman, who had gone, as they say, from sketchers to converse, from denim skirts to skinny jeans, from tops with puppies printed on them, to red knitted stripy jumpers (when Lizzie saw the one Iris was wearing, she thought Cioné had probably knitted it herself).

Iris had long, flowing, brunette hair, and the most beautiful green eyes. So many years ago now, Lizzie had sat opposite that little girl in a café in London, a little girl who had dreamed of so much, and who, in her mind, strode through so many worlds. She now sat next to the same girl, who was crying, out of the sheer terror about those same worlds falling apart, and how she was reaching out to them as much as she could but felt as if she were having them taken away from her, by her parents and the government and everyone else. Lizzie hugged her, and Iris just cried and cried and cried. It must've been building up for a long time, because Iris was seemingly inconsolable.

"Why are you so clever, oh my god," Iris laughed through all her tears. "You always know the right thing to say."

Lizzie wished she could find some words to express what it meant to have watched this little girl grow up into a young woman, but could find none. It was the most overwhelming feeling – a feeling that parents had felt over years and years, yet for Lizzie, they had been compressed into days, and it made _her_ start to sob as well.

"You know," Iris looked up and into Lizzie's eyes. "You're a sister to me."

Lizzie kissed the top of Iris' head – the little girl she'd spent years with, the little girl who had meant more to her in just a few days, than most people had meant to her in her entire life thus far.

"You've always been there for me," Iris continued. "Ever since I was small and for as long as I can remember, you've always helped me, and cared for me, and just… done _so_ much for me. You were there whenever it mattered."

It was meant to be a passionate speech but it was so broken up, under the emotion of years and years and years. Lizzie caught sight of a framed photograph, still sitting there on top of the mantelpiece where it had been placed years and years ago. It showed Lizzie, holding a little baby girl in her arms. A little girl with no worries, or sadness, or fears.

Iris.

The photo made her smile, and it made her cry even more.

"I don't know if it makes much sense," Lizzie began. "But you mean exactly the same to me."

The two sisters sat and cried, together, and it didn't matter about anyone else.

A few hours later, the Doctor returned, with Cioné in tow. Cioné hadn't really said much during that earlier father-daughter encounter, unlike the Doctor, who had gone completely off the rails.

Lizzie and Iris had been prepping for the fallout, because they'd suspected that it wasn't going to end well. Lizzie had settled on taking Cioné into the kitchen, and leaving the Doctor and Iris to fight it out. She'd hoped that this would be the best way. When Lizzie and Iris heard the Doctor and Cioné coming down the steps from the console room to the lounge, they stood up to greet them.

Needless to say, the Doctor did not look happy.

"Erm, uh, Cioné?" Lizzie gestured for Cioné to follow her into the kitchen, so that Iris and the Doctor could be alone and so that she and Cioné could shield themselves from the inevitable fireworks.

"Oh, of course," Cioné followed Lizzie.

The door clicked shut and the remnants of any previous conversation were shut out with it. The Doctor stood opposite Iris, and the two of them looked at each other. They each expected nothing less than honesty now.

"What I don't get," Iris began. "Is why you went completely off the handle at something so… tiny."

"Because it isn't tiny, it's your education."

"Mum was composed, she was calm, but you, you just completely went off your tits in anger and started having a massive go at me."

"Because you are wasting your potential, Iris," he replied, with surprising calm.

"Did you not consider what it's like for _her_?" Iris continued, as she recalled how her mother had hovered silently in the corner of the room, as if she hadn't been quite sure what to do or say, or as if she didn't dare say anything. "She couldn't even get a word in, because of you."

"Don't you dare say that, when I spend so much time looking after her –," he started.

"But…you seem to… seem to pick and choose when you after her, depending on when it works for you…"

"You know," the Doctor raised his voice a bit. "It's not the truancy that upset me, what upset me was when you said it was nothing worse than what _I've_ done –"

"And it isn't?" Iris interrupted him, shouting now. "You're just… such a hypocritical arse all the time! Don't you _see_ , Dad? You spend all your time running and, and –"

"I've made mistakes!" the Doctor roared. "And those mistakes have haunted me every single day –"

"But the day you left Gallifrey – you'd never go back on that..."

The Doctor didn't reply, because in all honesty, it was the truth. He wouldn't change that day.

"Exactly," Iris shrugged. "You wouldn't. Because it's one rule for you, and another for everyone else. It's fine if _you_ go and do whatever you want, whilst _I_ have to stay in school."

"No, Iris, it's _not_ like that –"

"No, you're right, it isn't," Iris replied, and then took a deep breath. She was crying now, and her voice was shaking, and she didn't want to say what she was going to say next because she knew it would make her feel guilty. She said it anyway. "It's about… power. You like to control me and Mum, and everybody else you meet. Like, you just fly down and pick up Lizzie whenever, and don't give it a second thought. You don't care about anyone else."

She was right – she felt very guilty after saying it, but she was right and it shut her Dad up, and that was what she'd wanted. _Wasn't it?_

"You know, Iris, you're such a child, because… you just don't get it –"

" _What_ don't I get?"

"I have _lost more people than you would ever believe_."

"Don't pull that fucking card on me, Dad, because… do you _know_ what it's like growing up in your shadow?"

The Doctor looked away from his daughter and down at the floor. And for a second, Iris thought he looked… was it ashamed? Iris couldn't be sure. But he looked guilty, and Iris felt awful for saying such things, but she couldn't stop herself – it was like a fountain dam breaking, and all the things that had been building up for years and years were just pouring out.

"You could never know what it's like being your daughter. You're the guy who basically caused the Time War, the guy who killed God. _I know_ about everyone you've lost, and I'm really sorry, but why don't you concentrate on doing something _good_ in memory of them, and not treat their memories as badly as you do. Grow up, Dad."

Iris slammed the door behind her.

* * *

 **LONDON, 2017**  
 **A BUS**

Cioné, being the glue that held their family together, had suggested they all go back to London again, together. The four of them – Cioné, Iris, the Doctor… and Lizzie. The atmosphere in the TARDIS had been dreadful – the fight between the Doctor and Iris had happened over a week ago, but they still hadn't been able to talk to each other since. Both of them had said things to the other that'd hurt. Both of them didn't think they'd be able to forgive the other, or forgive themselves for saying these things. Cioné had tried to liven the atmosphere a bit, but it hadn't worked.

Eventually, after a brief spot of lunch, they made their way onto a bus, and Iris, eyes glued to her mobile, walked up the stairs onto the second deck. The Doctor and Cioné sat down, and Iris walked straight past them, sitting a few rows back from her mother and father. Lizzie herself sat a few seats behind Iris, watching the whole family, observing them, as she'd done so many years ago. Apart from a few muttered words between the Doctor and Cioné, this time there was no laughter, no jokes, no crazy stories, no silly impressions.

Iris sat alone behind her parents.

And all four of them wanted the old days back.

* * *

 **FIVE SECONDS LATER (MAGGIE TIME)**

And, as Lizzie had promised, the TARDIS appeared in Maggie Shephard's garden again, on top of the cracked china skull of a gnome. That was Maggie's favourite gnome as well.

The door to the blue box opened, and Lizzie stepped out, looking, as Maggie would term it, like shi –, anyway.

"Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie," Maggie strode over to her and hugged her as she walked away from the box. "What's happened?"

The Doctor briefly appeared in the doorway, before turning to head back inside the TARDIS.

"If you've done anything to her," Maggie glared at him as she watched him. "I don't care _what_ magic-whizzy-space-box thing you fly about in, I will find my way across the universe and I will kill you."

"Maggie, please," Lizzie started.

"No, love," Maggie shushed her. " _You hear me_? This girl means as much to me as my own kids, so _piss off_ out of my back garden!"

The Doctor did as he was told, and a few seconds later, the TARDIS was gone. Maggie led Lizzie inside, and sat her down at the kitchen table, and went to boil the kettle.

"Who does he think he is?" Maggie began a rant that Lizzie knew would keep them there all day, if she let proceed.

" _You've_ changed your tune," Lizzie murmured.

" _That_ was before you turned up on my doorstep looking like this. Hey –," said Maggie, softly, as she took a bit of Lizzie's hair in her hands, running it through her fingers. "It's longer. Your hair is longer."

"Maggie, please – just listen."

Maggie shut up immediately, because when Lizzie was telling her to listen, she knew it was going to be pretty important. Tea was poured, and Maggie sat opposite her.

"The Doctor," Lizzie began. "He has a daughter. And I've just watched her grow up while I was 'away."

Lizzie proceeded to tell Maggie the story, of how she'd first met Iris about two weeks ago, as soon as she was born. And of how, in those two weeks, Earth time, Lizzie had experienced Iris' entire lifetime thus far, watching her grow up from the Earth equivalent of birth, through childhood to a young adult. It was a lot for Maggie to take in – but Maggie mainly felt very sorry for Lizzie. As a mother herself, she'd known what it was like to watch a child grow from birth to adulthood over many years – and she couldn't imagine watching such a process occurring over such a short span of time.

"And – I guess, maybe, I'm just finding it way too overwhelming. Because two weeks ago, I saw this little tiny baby, and I've seen her on so many of the big and important days in her life, and now, that I am seeing her as a young woman …It just makes me so… sad, watching her grow up, and I don't even know why."

"Well," Maggie took Lizzie's hand. "Growing up _is_ sad. Time passing is sad. Because… people change. People grow, and that's emotional. I've been there, funnily enough."

That made Lizzie laugh. Maggie was pretty good at doing that.

"But they've just…" Lizzie continued. "The Doctor and Iris, they aren't talking. They seem to hate each other now…"

"Families don't hate each other."

"But – like, I – I think _they do_."

"When parents fight with their kids, and with each other about their kids, it hurts, even more than any other time, because parents and kids are… _part_ of each other. And both sides say things that hurt, and those are the rawest of fights. But here's the thing – when they've said it all, and there's nothing else to say, it means they can all come back together."

Lizzie really hoped Maggie was right, and was too worried to think about what it would be like otherwise. Because she remembered the Doctor, all that time ago, when he'd arrived on her street, looking so sad and lonely, and she just wanted him to be happy, more than anything else. And she was desperate for Iris to be happy as well, because that lovely girl also deserved it… so, so much.

"The Doctor will be there for her," Maggie said, decisively, as if she knew it for certain, and Lizzie thought about questioning it because she didn't really believe her. But she decided not to say anything, and to allow Maggie to continue. "When he arrived before, I saw how much that little girl means to him. He adores her. And – I don't think he's the sort of person to give up on a love like that. I've seen all sorts of people in my lifetime, Lizzie – some that can just give up on that love, some that don't even feel that love. But when you've seen lonely children, you understand how much of an impact that love can make, and you know who holds it. God, it does sound cheesy, but it's true."

Lizzie was going to ask how she knew, how she could possibly be so certain, but then she remembered that the old woman was wise in matters such as this, and so, again, Lizzie said nothing. Maggie had anticipated Lizzie's uncertainty, however.

"A while ago, now, I arrived at the home to do what I always did. Help lonely kids who deserved better. And there was a little girl, wearing little red shoes with buckles on them. And her name … her name was Lizzie Darwin. Elizabeth Darwin, technically, but you told me that you didn't like being called that. And I remember that I said, 'Lizzie, let's go for a walk.' And we did! Not just then, but every single time we met."

Lizzie thought back to those days. It was as if they were yesterday.

"And I would go to the pegs, and take down your yellow mackintosh, and help you put it on, and zip it up. Then, I'd help you get your wellies on. And when we were done, I'd get my coat and kneel down in front of you, because I was younger then and my knees could bend. And, you'd help me put _my_ coat on, and help me to zip it up. Then, we'd do the same with my wellies. And we'd go for a walk through the garden."

That was Lizzie's favourite part of the story, although she was left wondering what on Earth Maggie's purpose was in retelling this story now.

"Point is, Lizzie. That story is you to a tee. Even when you think you can't really help, you still try, and you still find a way to do it anyway."

Lizzie realised what she meant, now. It wasn't a solution to their problems. But it _was_ a call to Lizzie Darwin to help find a solution.

* * *

Since the Doctor had started to use mobile phone technology, it now meant Lizzie could easily contact him when and wherever. And when she gave him a ring, the TARDIS would materialise not so very many minutes later, in exactly the same spot it had left before. This time, when the Doctor appeared in the doorway of the blue box and Lizzie stepped inside, Maggie gave them both a friendly wave, before the TARDIS dematerialised.

"Lizzie!" the Doctor tried to act all warm and friendly, but he wasn't doing a very good job. "Let's go somewhere."

Lizzie nodded. "Okay."

"Anywhere! All of time and all of space. Danger? Maybe? Maybe not? Whatever you like."

This was her chance.

It might get her kicked off the TARDIS. But…

 _Might he listen?_

Probably not.

 _But he might._

So she said it anyway, because it was more important than her relationship with him.

"On one condition."

The Doctor looked at her, unfazed. "Go on. Surprise me," he smiled.

"Iris comes with us."

She'd come straight out with it, deciding not to waste time beating about the bush. She was going to have to say it at some point, it might as well be now. The Doctor's face certainly showed surprise, and it even looked slightly grim, before the Doctor turned away from her and walked towards the console.

"She can't," the Doctor said, pulling a lever. It was with the same aggression he'd pulled that lever a while back, and the TARDIS, again, let out a sad whine.

"You, um, you can't leave it like this."

"Lizzie, she said things to me that hurt. I was upset. I _am_ upset"

"But – doesn't it occur to you that you upset her as well?"

The Doctor sat down on his leather chair – the one Iris had sat in when she'd told him about something so important to her, and he'd accepted it and been so happy for her.

Happier times.

He had said that he'd always be there for her. Always. And she never had to worry about him turning his back on her.

"I know what it's like," Lizzie said after taking a deep breath, not sure where she was going with this, what exactly it was that she was trying to say, but she knew she'd have to continue anyway and she did. "I know what it's like to feel alone when you're young –"

"And you think I don't?"

"Well – if you – if you _do_ get it, then why don't you go back to her? Because that's how she feels, Doctor. She wants to be accepted for who _she_ is. That's all she's wanted for such a long time."

The Doctor stood up. It was another one of those moments, when the Doctor would throw all his toys out of his proverbial pram, and Lizzie would say something to him that would make so much sense to him that he'd look like and feel like an idiot.

* * *

The TARDIS materialised in Cioné's living room, and when the Doctor bounded out of the door, Cioné and Iris were waiting for him.

"I'm sorry," Iris said to him. "Really, really sorry."

It was almost as if someone had talked to her in advance... (oh, who was Lizzie kidding? She'd phoned Cioné and instructed her to give Iris a similar pep-talk.)

"So am I," the Doctor whispered as he hugged his daughter and she hugged him back, and they were honest with each other again, but about less painful things, this time. "I should never have said those things to you, especially after I promised to always, _always_ be here for you, Iris. But now, I will be – truly and always."

"I should never have said those things to you either," Iris said, her voice muffled by the Doctor's jacket.

"I was just as bad, Iris," he pulled away. "Can we put it behind us? Move on?"

Iris nodded, smiling at her dad. Both of them were quite similar, really. But the Doctor had known that all along – he just hadn't realised it properly.

"Well!" Cioné leapt in. "Thank goodness that's all over! You've both been a _nightmare_ to live with."

"Sorry," the Doctor apologised sheepishly.

"Yeah… same," Iris gave her mum her best puppy dog eyes, which were just as effective as they'd always been. And…. speaking of puppy dogs –

"Sorry mistress Cioné!" K9 chirped up from the corner.

"Oh, not _you_ K9!" Cioné knelt down beside the faithful hound and gave him a good rub behind the ears. "You're a delight, as always"

"Thank you, mistress Cioné!"

"Good dog, K9," the Doctor added. He was reminded of how, years and years ago, he'd used to travel around space and time with K9. Technically, it was a different K9 – but the Doctor had built this one by harvesting the same circuits. He was like a reminder of the old days – but he was also _their_ dog, Cioné's and Iris'.

"So, my dear," the Doctor took his daughter's hand. "As recompense for my sins – a trip in the TARDIS, perhaps?"

"Absolutely, father dear," she said as she kissed her father's hand with a dramatic flourish, and made her way towards the TARDIS. The Doctor, Lizzie and Iris looked up at the great blue box, and wondered what adventures awaited them. They turned, to see Cioné, watching them, K9 at her heels.

"Mum – can't you come with us?" Iris asked.

"Me?" Cioné mock-gestured towards herself. "Oh, of course not. Father-daughter time! And besides! I've got lots of cooking and cleaning to do – I _do_ so love making house."

An awkward silence fell as the three of them stared at her in sheer disbelief.

"No, of course not," Cioné shrugged off her sarcastic previous remarks, laughing. "I'm well overdue for a holiday. I'm off on a glowfly-hunting expedition! See you all later!"

Iris walked away and kissed her mum. "Enjoy yourself."

"Oh, darling – I will! Apparently, their rosé is the finest in the galaxy. Don't get up to _too_ much mischief."

The Doctor gave her a wink.

"And you," Cioné kissed him. "Look after her. Otherwise I will renounce my pacifism and _come after you_."

"Absolutely," the Doctor agreed, even if he did rather slightly fear for his life. Lizzie slipped into the TARDIS, followed by the Doctor – and finally, Iris gave her mother one final wave, before disappearing as well.

Cioné watched the blue box slowly dematerialise, listening to the soothing sounds of the TARDIS engines roaring to life. Such a sound that Iris had had the pleasure of growing up with. A sound that would always remind Iris of a childhood, and a sound that would always remind her of someone who would keep her safe, of someone who would always protect her, of someone who would always be there for her.

Of the Doctor.

Of her Dad.

* * *

"So," the Doctor spun the screen around, to give Iris a good look at the outing he had in mind. "Fancy a high-adrenaline trip? Because I've got a great day out to suggest!"

"Sounds great," Iris said as she wandered around her Dad's TARDIS, looking at all the books on the shelves, and at the stars visible through the observatory. She'd been in there so many times, she'd flown in the TARDIS so many times. But there was something different this time – as if _now,_ she was going somewhere _exciting_.

"The Bug," the Doctor said, as he displayed an image on the screen, an image similar to the one he'd been shown over a century ago, just before he'd found out about the birth of Iris. Lizzie recognised the creature immediately – of course, for her, it had only been two weeks ago. And it was still fresh in her mind, including the utter disgust in Elle Mthembu's voice as she described it. "White supremacist," the Doctor continued. "LGBTQ+ hater."

"General arsehole, then?" Iris grimaced.

"Language, dear," the Doctor scolded. "But yes. Fancy putting a stop to his next attack?"

"Oh, it would be _a delight_."

"Lizzie?" the Doctor turned to her.

"Oh – er, count me in! Definitely. Wouldn't miss this for the world."

Lizzie had, in fact, been too busy watching the relaxed banter between the girl and her dad.

"I've locked onto a trace generated by the Bug's high-tech equipment," the Doctor continued, as he made his way around the TARDIS console, piloting the great ship. "Disadvantage of the Bug being the most recognisable terrorist in the galaxy, I suppose."

It was not long before they'd landed. In fact, it was a weirdly short time – so short the Doctor wondered whether they were somewhere they'd been before, as the TARDIS had landed with relative ease.

"Lizzie? Would you do the honours?"

Lizzie pulled on her coat, and opened the door to the TARDIS, expecting to see whatever world they were about to step out on to. Preparing to find the greatest terrorist in the universe. Preparing to find an utter monster. Business as usual, then. Except it wasn't, because usually the Doctor's daughter wasn't involved, and usually it didn't involve space-terrorists.

And usually, Lizzie didn't feel like fainting as soon as she opened the doors.

This time, she did. Because it turned out that the Doctor had been right – they _had_ landed somewhere they'd been before. In fact, it was somewhere Lizzie knew very, _very_ well.

They were in the den – the one hidden snugly away behind Lizzie's care home, the one with the great oak tree overhanging the magical pond, and with the rope that swung out over the water. It was the place where Lizzie had run to whenever she needed to escape, Lizzie's way out, for so many years. Of course, most recently, she'd been here when she first met the Doctor, and they had fought the masked maiden. For some reason, they'd arrived there again.

The Doctor was just as confused as she was, and quickly dashed back inside the TARDIS to make sure they'd come to the right place.

"Where is this place?" Iris asked, walking out of the box and across the mossy, dirty ground, towards the edge of the pond. "I mean – why's it so important?"

"It's – it's my home," answered Lizzie. "I mean, this place was like… like my secret place, my refuge, when I was a child."

But all three of them sensed what it meant – the Bug was here, for some reason. And what _other_ reason would it have to come to that place specifically, unless it wanted something to do with them, specifically with the Doctor and Lizzie?

Iris was the first person to dare say what they were all thinking. "So… do you think it knows that we're onto it?"

"I don't know," the Doctor spoke through gritted teeth, holding his sonic screwdriver up in the air. "But the Bug has definitely been here."

A great fear rose in Lizzie, as she thought of all the kids living in the house, and the child that had died at the hands of the masked maiden. It was as if, somehow, the Bug was crawling all over her childhood, and contaminating it, poisoning it.

Then, the Doctor did something odd, even for him.

He had knelt down, beside the pond, and was pointing his sonic screwdriver towards the centre of the water. The sonic's beeping noise had increased in frequency and pitch, redirected an ear towards the water's surface and then stepped back, grabbing a stone and tossing it in.

Lizzie watched as the stone broke the surface, and ripples fanned out across the pond. But the surface of the pond quickly became still again. Perhaps, in such a secluded spot, the water settled easily.

"This pond is impossible," the Doctor stepped back.

"An impossible pond?" Iris asked incredulously.

"The energy readings I'm getting here are impossible," the Doctor shook his head. "And, I suspect – and, I _believe_ that the pond is actually a wormhole through space and time."

"A… _what_?" asked Iris. And to be fair, it was, for Iris, very much like being thrown into the deep end of the pool. Rather literally, in this case. Lizzie, however, was slightly more concerned about the fact that the pond where she'd spent so many years hiding away, was a portal to a completely different part of space and time.

"And, er… I think the Bug has gone through it, added the Doctor. "Wow… Lizzie … I'm glad you never fell off the rope swing."

It was a bit of a relief, at least, that the Bug (probably) hadn't harmed anyone in the home. And that it had scooted off from one of the places she felt the safest, as quickly as possible. Even so, it was still out there. But, wherever the portal led – the portal she'd been living on top of for pretty much her entire childhood – the Bug was there.

Lizzie knew what they had to do.

She looked at Iris, who clearly agreed. She'd grown to know Iris' mannerisms so well, as she'd watched them grow and develop and react for so many years…or was it weeks? – in Lizzie time.

They both looked at the Doctor, and he nodded.

The three of them joined hands – Iris in the middle, the Doctor on her right, and Lizzie on her left. They held on tightly – and not one of them was going to let go. They were doing this together, hoping for the best… hoping that the wormhole was safe to travel through.

The three of them walked as one, down to the edge of the pond, still holding hands, and stopped at the water's edge.

"On three," the Doctor said.

Time seemed to take an age to pass.

But at the same time, it passed in the blink of an eye.

"1…

2…

 _ **3**_ …"

And they fell.

 **TO BE CONTINUED**


	9. 507 The Memory Graveyard

It was, for sure, an absolutely beautiful day.

The sky of wherever it was Iris sat was a deep burnt orange, like it was lit up by a million, billion flames all at once. It reminded her of home – of Gallifrey. The sky there always burned, as if it was always on fire, like a permanent sunset. As if the day was always dying, but there was always the hope of a new day rising again. There was an old Gallifreyan idiom that said during the darkest days on Gallifrey, when there was no hope to be found, the sky would stop burning, as if there was no hope to be found.

Thankfully, Iris had never seen any of those days.

However… Gallifrey was not truly home for her. Home would always be TARDIS-bound, drifting somewhere through space with her parents. When she thought back to her childhood, she remembered the days of never stopping and never saying, just travelling, all the time. It made her happy, to think back to that simple time, when the world was so simple, and so… not complex. No expectations, nobody wanting her to be something she wasn't. It was just perfect.  
Wherever she was now, the day had a magical quality to it. And, as if it had heard her, and decided to outdo its previous displays of beauty, Iris looked up, to see snowflakes, floating down in the light of the golden sun, against the flaming sky. It didn't quite fit, the ice and cold of the snow juxtaposed against the orange above her. Though, at the same time, it seemed to work as well.

Iris was sat on a chair – a white, wrought iron, garden seat, with a table in front of her looking as if it were from the same set. She wore the same clothes she'd worn –

Oh. That she'd worn when she left the world.

That had been her last memory. Her, Dad, and Lizzie. They'd arrived on Earth, tracking down… what was it? A thing, a monster, something that when she heard about, her skin crawled, as if there were a million tiny bugs underneath –

That was it. The Bug.

Dad, Lizzie, and herself, had been tracking down the Bug, and had arrived at the most magical pond, secluded in a forest, the water sleeping under the shadow of a grand old oak. Her dad had waved his screwdriver thing around for a bit, as men often did, and had eventually deduced that the Bug had somehow crossed through into another dimension, and that to catch him, they had to do the same. And so they all took hands, and stepped towards the edge of the Pond.

And they fell. Forwards. Into the water. But there had been no splash, they hadn't fallen into an icy cascade as she'd expected. Instead, from that moment, her memory stopped. It wasn't like going to sleep, where gradually you nod off, and the next morning, if you try and think back to those final moments before entering your repose, you cannot remember the exact moment that you fell asleep. No, it wasn't like that at all. This time, Iris could remember _exactly_ the moment her memory had stopped.

She'd fallen into the water. It was then.

Then, she looked opposite her, and saw the White Rabbit. He wore a waistcoat, and had a fob watch attached to his lapel, and he wore a top hat.

"A'right, 'guvnor!"

 _That_ wasn't _right_.

Iris remembered the White Rabbit. A scientist at heart, Iris also had a fondness of literature as well, although not quite as passionate. It had been Lizzie who'd got her into books. And Alice in Wonderland had been her favourite for a great many years. She had read it so many times, she knew half of it off by heart.

So she was certain that the White Rabbit did _not_ speak in a cockney accent.

"Where… am…," what was the next bit of the sentence. "I?"

"Welcome to the Memory Graveyard!" the White Rabbit chirped, as if it were introducing her to the local pub and preparing to buy her a drink.

"You're…"

"A talking rabbit! You wouldn't Adam and Eve it, I know."

"But you're from Alice in Wonderland?"

"You _what_? Not a clue what you're on about, love."

"Right…"

"Oh, bugger me. I'm late! Bloody late, it's an important date, as well. Come on!"

The White Rabbit hopped off his chair, and started trotting off over the grass. Iris stood up to follow him, before realising that she was standing up to follow a talking rabbit, after which she hesitated.

"Who are you?"

The White Rabbit glanced at his watch, and sighed. "I'm the Memory Keeper. I'm the one responsible for keeping this ol' place ticking over! Bloomin' hard work, lemmie tell you!"

Iris still hesitated, though she was intrigued by the funny little rabbit – by this funny anthropomorphised aspect of her childhood. It was oddly comforting, in fact.  
"Come on, now!" the Memory Keeper hopped back to her. He was quite large for a rabbit, about as tall as her knees. "Time to go! Places to go, memories to see. Y'see, Iris, you're special. For all sorts of reasons, I ain't quite sure myself yet! But we'll find out, me and you! So, love, let's go!"

Iris followed the White Rabbit, who was hopping off into the horizon. She accidentally tripped over a clump of grass, but regained herself and did a quick recce to make sure nobody saw. Smoothing herself down, she continued on into the distance.

 **THE EIGHTH DOCTOR ADVENTURES**

 **SERIES 5 - EPISODE 7**

 **THE MEMORY GRAVEYARD**

 **WRITTEN BY ED GOUNDREY-SMITH**

"Oi!" Iris chased after the rabbit as it steadily hopped away. The Memory Keeper turned to her, and then stopped, as the sound of a phone ringing interrupted them. It was an electronic, slightly fuzzy version of the traditional Nokia ringtone.

"Hold on love," the rabbit raised a foot to halt her. Iris stopped, and then pointed at the furry creature.

"Don't call me love!" she complained, her hopes that in this strange place casual sexism would _not_ be a thing.

The rabbit had taken a little mobile phone out of its pocket – it was a weirdly adorable representation of a Nokia Brick, the sort of thing a doll would wield. It pressed a button, and put the phone to its ear.

"What is it?" the rabbit grumbled. "I'm in the middle of something, mate."

There was a brief silence, and Iris tried to pick out what was going on down the other end of the phone. She couldn't hear anything, apart from a quiet mumbling (she couldn't even distinguish anything from the mumbling). After a while, the rabbit sighed.

"Thanks for nothing. Now piss off before you make me say something I regret!"

The phone went dead, and the rabbit pocketed it. When he shook his head in distaste, his floppy ears flapped from side to side. "Idiots," he spat.

"Who was it?" Iris asked.

"Sorry love," the Memory Keeper started to hop back to the little table the two of them had originally sat at. "Turns out our little date is off!"

"That was _not_ a date." She didn't usually go for rabbits.

The rabbit raised its feet. "Whatever you say," he hopped back onto his chair. "Want a cuppa?"

Iris sat down opposite him. "No thanks. Everyone I know seems to drink it. Dad drinks it. Lizzie and Mum drink the hell out of it. So much so it's got weird now. If I had to go for a hot drink, hot chocolate all the way."

The rabbit waved a foot, and a silver platter appeared in the middle of the garden table. On top, was a glass jug. There was a glass dish, piled high with mini marshmallows, and a little glass pot, almost like a powder keg, brimming with chocolate sprinkles. A smaller glass jug contained cream, and there were two glass mugs, presumably for her, and the Memory Keeper. He reached out, poured a glass of hot chocolate for her, and another for himself.

"Cream? Marshmallows? Choccie sprinkles?"

"I'll help myself," Iris gratefully took her mug, before dolloping in some whipped cream, and dusting a few chocolate sprinkles on top. She took a few marshmallows, and after popping one in her mouth, she dropped the rest into the mug. When she put it to her lips, it was heavenly. If one could imagine the finest hot chocolate they had ever drunk, they would have to forget it, for this was far creamier, far more chocolatey, and as the thick heaven passed through her lips, and crept down her gullet, Iris was taken to better place.

"This is delicious," she nodded. "Best hot chocolate I've ever drunk. Which doesn't make sense."

"Why not?" the Memory Keeper took a sip from his glass, whipping off a chocolate stain on his white fur when he slammed the glass back on the table as if it were a tankard of beer.

"Because it doesn't. None of this does. I'm a scientist, this doesn't add up."

Yes, that felt good. She was sure of herself then, when she proudly declared who she was. She knew that about herself, and it was good to have something she could be certain of.

"Oi, don't want to be listening to them scientists. Utter rubbish, you hear?"

"Where am I, then?"

"I've told ya!"

"Specifically," Iris said, unwaveringly, staring the white rabbit dead on in the face, not even a hint of irony in her expression.

"The Memory Graveyard is basically –

* * *

"Hell," the Doctor helped Lizzie up from the stone-cold ground. They'd both woken up there, lying next to each other, in a room in which the interior designers had gone slightly overkill on the charcoal grey colour-scheme. They were in a sort of junction – a crossroads, between several extremely tall shelves. When they looked upwards, they saw the shelves on either side of them ran right upwards to the very high ceiling. Wherever they were, it was more like a hall, with a great maze in the middle of it – and they were in the middle of that maze.

"… hell?" Lizzie asked.

"No," the Doctor rubbished his previous statement. "No, I've been to hell, and it's nothing like this. This is like Hell's broom cupboard. The lost property section."

The shelves were a mess – and they weren't all ceiling-high shelves either. There were shorter bookcases as well, and chests of drawers, and cupboard units, and filing cabinets, and wardrobes, and any kind of storage furnishing one could possibly imagine, all crammed in close together. They were crammed with a mass of everything – there were ancient, dusty books, and there were ring-binders with aged papers clipped inside, and lever-arch files, and display booklets. On some of the shelves were wrought metal frames, or antique wooden ones, pictures pressed inside, some in monochrome, and some in the brightest of colours. There were no links between the pictures – they were all from different places all over the universe, and from times all in history. When Lizzie poked her head inside a wardrobe, there were summer dresses, and woolly winter jumpers, and frock coats like the Doctor's, and trench coats, and tweed jackets, and tin-foil like spacesuits. The Doctor had pulled out a filing cabinet, and had gone rifling through the mass of files inside, to see if he could find anything. It was all just miscellaneous documentation, from all over the universe. Bank statements, phone bills, death certificates, divorce papers, murder reports, mugshots, letters to and from loved ones.

Lizzie looked at some ornaments in a glass display case – a skull, an ancient globe, a rattle, a silver knife and fork. There were no links between any of it, it was all random. And it wasn't all contained within storage. The walkways were awash with random clutter, with lamps, and circular window frames, gardening tools, curtain rails, sunglasses, mugs, rabbit hutches, bottles of wine, beer and spirits. There were stuffed moose heads, woks, union jacks, gongs, harmonicas, padlocks, paperclips – if it existed, it was lightly somewhere within 10 square metres of them.

"I've read about this place. Not much, mind, but I know roughly what it is. It's an idea, a, a… concept, more than anything else. Gallifreyan philosophy journals, they mention it a few times. It's not a well-known theory, though."

"I did A level philosophy and… it never came up," Lizzie walked over to the Doctor, who was busy examining a shoe rack, and playing with a solitary flipflop.

"No, it wouldn't, it's beyond that. It's beyond Earth philosophy, science, literature, everything."

Lizzie looked at the Doctor, as he awkwardly tried to re-lace an abandoned walking boot.

"It's your theory, isn't it?"

The Doctor was not a good liar.

"Okay. When I was going through a rough patch, I came up with the idea. A place, somewhere in the universe, where every bad memory goes. You know... memories and dreams can manifest themselves in objects? Well, the manifestations end up here. Or, at least, I think."

Lizzie suddenly thought back to all the clothes she saw in the wardrobe and the stuff in the drawers and cabinets and felt sad that all that stuff would be sad for people. Then she thought of the scale of the entire universe, and realised how absolutely massive the place had to be.

"Here," the Doctor pointed to a polished, engraved plaque on top of a pedestal.

 **THESE POSSESSIONS ARE PROPERTY OF THE MEMORY GRAVEYARD.**

 **DO NOT TOUCH OTHERWISE BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN.**

 **PROBABLY.**

It was a bit casual. Actually it didn't make any sense because it was the least threatening thing either of them had ever seen.

"It's got a name as well!" the Doctor danced away from the pedestal. "The Memory Graveyard. What a name, too."

"Hmm…" Lizzie nodded, still trying to take in the scale of this place, if it was where the Doctor thought it was.

"Everything bad in the universe," he continued, scanning the books and ornaments and CDs and toys. "Every bad memory, every nightmare, every phobia, every rotten day at the office – it's all here."

"I guess… that some of this stuff is linked to bad memories more than anything else. Cause all these old books and stuff," Lizzie ran her hands over an old copy of _Danny, the Champion of the World._ She loved that book.

"Exactly. It might mean something… something so wonderful, to you. But for someone, it could be corrupted with the worst days of their lives."

When Lizzie thought of it like that, she realised that… that everything that ever existed could be in here. Because dark memories could creep, and could contaminate everything, and could bury it deep within this huge depository of items. After all… grief was not something that went away, it would cast a shadow forever.

Then she remembered something very important. In fact, she hated herself for forgetting it - but she couldn't help it. It felt as if only half of her mind was focussed on the current situation, as if the majority of her brainpower was being... delegated for something else, something she didn't understand.

"Iris…"

"She's here, somewhere," the Doctor was sonic-ing a blue panel attached to the front of one of the shelves. "When we fell through the gap between the dimensions, somehow she got pulled to another part of the graveyard. We just need to work out where…"

Lizzie could hear the concern in his voice – he too, had grasped the scale of the Memory Graveyard, and knew that Iris could be anywhere.

Anywhere in the nightmares of everything that ever existed.

* * *

"You're… alright, though," Iris observed the Memory Keeper, who was licking at _another_ white stain on his fur.

"Yeah. Well, love, I'm 'ere, I just have to like it or lump it."

"That expression is really annoying," Iris finished off her hot chocolate, and pinched another mini marshmallow, tossing it into her mouth. "It implies that you have to live with things you don't like."

"Sometimes, love…"

"Firstly, stop calling me love. Also, you can change things."

The rabbit raised its feet defensively, and Iris gave it a sassy look. Beyond her sassy looks, however, she was not sure she was correct about that expression. Sometimes, you do just have to deal with things, and she assumed that the reason she didn't like the expression was because it was truthful. However, she maintained the philosophy of her father. And although she didn't know it, she also maintained his optimism.

The rabbit winked back, and Iris hoped she wasn't accidentally flirting with a rabbit. And a male rabbit at that. Especially one as sleazy as the Memory Keeper.  
"Have you got a name?"

"The Memory Keeper! I said!"

"I mean one that's a bit easier for my internal monologue to keep up with."

"How about… Keith?" the rabbit suggested.

"A bit Australian?" Iris shook her head.

"It sounds like 'keeper', dunnit?"

"Hmm. I like the alliteration thing. How about… Martin? No – Melvyn. That's it, definitely. Melvyn."

The rabbit repeated it back to himself a few times, in his distinct cockney accent. "I like it."

"As I was saying, Melvyn. Where, in the universe, actually am I?"

"You wouldn't understand."

"I'm a scientist, I was made to understand."

Melvyn sighed an incredibly patronising sigh, and Iris had to resist the increasingly strong urge to kill then rabbit and take it back to the TARDIS to put into a stew.

"Isn't it obvious?" Melvyn waved around him. "We're in another dimension! You've got time, you've got space – and you've got memory. Memory or dreams, they blur a bit."

Iris, who, as her Dad insisted on reminding her _all the time_ , had a scholarship for some really good physics thing, knew that Melvyn was not attuned to recent scientific studies. "Scientifically, that doesn't make sense."

"We're in memory," Melvyn poured himself another hot chocolate. "Who says memories have to make sense?"

Iris nodded. She couldn't fault him. And, it perhaps provided some reason why a perfectly normal mammal from Earth was talking to her like a character from EastEnders (a soap opera from Earth she'd watched a few episodes of with Lizzie, before coming to the conclusion that it was a bit depressing).

"You know there's a thing here?" Iris assumed Melvyn probably knew, but just wanted to make sure. Not that Melvyn was going to be able to take much action against the most effective terrorist in the history of history, but she felt some kind of moral obligation to tell the funny little rabbit.

"You'll 'ave to be more specific."

"A terrorist."

"Oh, yeah. That thing. That's why I was on the phone, the big cheeses all telling me to batten down the hatches, and all that. They said it'd be fine, though."

"The universe's greatest terrorist? Fine?"

"That sounded better in my head."

"I did wonder…"

The rabbit was a bit too calm for Iris' liking, especially because she felt increasingly concerned about the fact she was alone, with nothing but this rabbit for protection, with a white supremacist anti-gay thug on the loose. As she'd grown up, she'd heard stories about the Bug, on the news. About how he caught gay people, and did _things_ to them. She couldn't bring herself to thing about the things they mentioned, but it was gruesome. Assaults, murders, everything. Iris looked around, concerned. Melvyn had told her how her worst nightmares were all in here with her, how they'd all be coming after her. The fact the Bug was definitely in there with them was confirmation of what the rabbit had said.

Then, she heard a voice.

* * *

As Lizzie paced the corridor, looking at the orb far above her head, casting the area with a silver light, she wondered who was in charge of this place. How could anyone… _build_ something like this. It would be impossible to manage, to keep track of. It chilled her, though, to realise how much fear was in the universe. Finally, she was beginning to get to grips with the geography of the place – as much as she could. It was just like a huge library, with all sorts of storage units filled with all sorts of stuff, in a kind of labyrinthine layout. Occasionally, there would be a screen, upon which the Doctor assumed should be some kind of information. He found nothing, however. Lizzie, on the other hand, was just trying to take in the vast masses of stuff around her, at one point nearly falling over a hat stand, and again, nearly putting her foot through an old painting balanced carelessly up against a wardrobe. There were white goods – dishwashers, tumble dryers, washing machines. There were lanyards and keyrings and twiglets and DVD boxsets and calendars and locks and chains and maps and briefcases and drums and coathangers and engines and rulers and tissues and cable-ties and textbooks and masks and

"A chicken," Lizzie watched as the poultry squawked and dashed in front of her. It was vaguely amusing to imagine the nightmares one could have over a chicken. The Doctor saw it dart off towards the end of the corridor, babbling away to itself, feathers flying upwards as it ran.

"People have phobias about all sorts of things," the Doctor observed. Lizzie looked at him, and back at the chicken, and they both burst into fits of laughter.

"Come on, now. People _do_ have nightmares about all sorts!" Lizzie scolded him, as they heard the faint cluckings of the chicken echoing in the grand hall.

"If I ever have grandchildren," the Doctor laughed. "I'll tell them this story. How I went to the place where all the bad dreams in the universe go. And I met a chicken."

"It's probably a very sad chicken..."

"Though on a serious note," the Doctor walked over to the nearest screen. "Therefore, there must be… live exhibits."

Lizzie shuddered to think of the sheer number of spiders they would be surrounded by.

"Map," the Doctor told the screen, as if he were in an episode of Dora the Explorer (he'd watched the 52nd century reboot with Iris, in which Dora explored the newly discovered Herylton Cluster). The screen did nothing.

"I don't think there's any kind of order to this place," Lizzie looked over his shoulder. The Doctor moved out the way so she could see the blankness of the ever-blank screens. "Maybe you just haven't been using it properly."

She thought about the map, hoping it would appear on screen. And low and behold, it did. The Doctor looked at her, his face the picture of confusion, despite the fact it was the exact same mechanism that worked in his TARDIS.

"Telepathy. It's a memory graveyard," Lizzie made it sound as if it were obvious. Suddenly, as if by magic, a map appeared on the screen. The Doctor's face lit up, in a kind of curious way, and his gaze poured all over the new information.

"Interesting," he admitted. "Each level is infinite. And, think it through – makes sense, the universe is infinite."

"But there are… levels," Lizzie saw that the schematic – it was divided into four tiers, of some kind. They were at the top.

"Yes. Question is, what's on each level?"

He tapped the lower level on the screen – red text flashed up.

 **Emotion harvest.**

"Ominous," he said. He selected the other two levels – the one below them read ' **frequent** ' and the third level down read ' **haunting** '. "My guess," he continued. "Is that as you progress lower down, the, I don't know, 'intensity' of the memory, or dream, or fear, increases. As if it gets more specific as you go down. And 'emotion harvest'... that's the connection station. This place, it thrives on memory, and... when I developed the theory, I thought that to have something to huge and sprawling, it would have to be powered with something human."

"Iris could be anywhere," Lizzie observed, ignoring what he was saying about the Memory Graveyard having to be powered by something human, perhaps because she was just trying to avoid thinking of the worst possible outcome.

"I've placed a scan on Gallifreyan life. To be honest, I could place the scan on humanoid life in general, and I'd still get the same results. Four of us. You, me, Iris, and the Bug."

"And... where's Iris?" When she said it, she sort of knew what the answer was going to be, as she'd noticed that their adventures tended to form a bit of a pattern that involved them falling into as much danger as possible.

The scan completed.

"One guess…"

"'Emotion harvest'," Lizzie was certain.

"No surprises there…"

"The Bug is here," she glanced at the screen. "On our level, I mean."

"Yes. We're going to speak to him, in a minute. Find out what he's planning, and then we can panic. Firstly, Iris. I can rig up a communications loop with her – if we're doing telepathy, it should be easy."

The Doctor placed two fingers from both hands on his forehead, and Lizzie looked at him weirdly because it was, in fact, completely unnecessary (as if she were somehow the expert in telepathy).

* * *

"Iris!" her Dad's voice rushed into her head. She jumped, knocking the garden table with her legs, and nearly knocking half a jug of hot chocolate into Melvyn's lap.

"Oi, love! Nearly scolded my manhood, as it were," he sniggered to himself, and Iris glared at him.

"Dad!" she said, aloud. "Where are you?"

"Lizzie and I have looked at the schematics – we're on the top floor."

"Where am I? It doesn't look like what I'd call a floor, though," Iris glanced around her at the truly magnificent landscape, with its golden sunsets and glittering snowflakes.

"Bottom floor," the Doctor's disembodied voice said. "And each level is infinite. Though we can travel through each – I would guess wherever you are is on a different… dimensional plain, or – I don't know. The physics of this place, it doesn't make sense."

"Tell me about it…"

"Anyway, don't go anywhere."

"I wasn't planning on it. I've made a friend."

Something changed in the Doctor's voice. He suddenly sounded curious – if slightly worried. She wondered why – though she expected it was probably just her Dad being fatherly as to who she was mixing with.

"Who?"

When she eventually overcame her irritation that he was trying to vet her life completely, she told him.

"It's a rabbit. And he talks."

"Oi oi!" Melvyn called over. The Doctor did not respond to Melvyn.

"A talking rabbit? Well – nothing is impossible, as we've proved today. Look – Lizzie and I are going to get you. We're keeping an eye on the Bug as well."

"Okay… yeah. I am… slightly concerned about him."

"He's on our floor now. And he doesn't seem like the sharpest knife in the cross-dimensional abstract memory graveyard, so he won't be able to work out how to get down to you."

"Stay safe, Dad."

"I will."

The Doctor's disembodied voice stopped.

"Was that your dad?" Melvyn asked, not a hint of any kind of sympathy in his voice.

"Yep."

"Sounds like a right posh-boy."

"You're a talking rabbit, shut up."

* * *

The Doctor began rooting through the midst of stuff, as if he were looking for something.

"What are you looking for?" Lizzie asked him, wanting to help. Sometimes the Doctor would get so distracted about something, he would forget about everyone else, and just focus all of his efforts on the task at hand. Now, she could tell he was worried about Iris. Any concern for anyone else was gone – she was his priority. He was a good dad, like that. Fiercely protective of his own. She could see it, as he watched him go – he was quicker, and more agitated, desperate to find her.

"What if I can't?" the Doctor turned to Lizzie.

"Wha – what do you mean, if you can't?" she walked over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"What if I've lost her, Lizzie?" His voice shook, and it always hurt her when he was like this. It was like watching a parent cry – seeing somebody that should always be the one to pull things together break down was always the most difficult thing.

"You haven't lost her. She's here, somewhere. And we'll get to her."

"But if we don't. I'd have… brought my daughter to such a dangerous place, just for a laugh. What kind of parent does that make me?"

"She's, like… old enough to look after herself-"

"She's not, though, she's just a girl-"

"You're a good dad, Doctor. Just… let her be her."

The Doctor stood over a jumbo crate of Jaffa cakes, looking down at them with a grim affection.

Lizzie continued. "You know, you could have… run and stuff, and left her. You nearly did, but you didn't-"

"Because you were there to stop me."

"You wouldn't have done, though."

Lizzie was surprised by how sure she was, that the Doctor wouldn't have run. But she knew, when she looked at him, that he wouldn't, because she could see the love for his family in his eyes, and she knew he wouldn't ever be able to bring himself to leave them. Though he liked to pretend he was all enigmatic and mysterious, he was, in fact, very easy to see through.

"I saw you three… you know, on that bus, and – you really love them, Cioné and Iris, I mean. You'd never leave them. And so… I guess I know that you'll never leave Iris here. Because she is here, and I know we'll find her. I know that you won't stop until we have."

There was silence, as he looked up, and back at her, his eyes still filled his anxiety.

"What are you looking for?" Lizzie asked him again.

"A microphone."

She looked around briefly, and pointed to the one right by his left foot. He looked down at it, and then back up at her, and he couldn't help but smile. And neither could he.

There was something odd, about smiling in such a place. It wasn't as if there was anything there specifically to drag the mood down – it was all such a random collection of objects, some of which Lizzie saw and thought would make lovely furniture (she had a thing for interior designing). It was as if, at the same time, there was a constant negative energy. It was as if both her and the Doctor could feel all the sadness towards the memories, as if it were still stuck to the objects like dust, and they were inhaling it.

The Doctor had wired the vintage microphone into the screen, with a clever bit of fiddling around with the wires. He tapped it, and there was the sudden _pop_ as the speakers burst into life. Then came a squeak, and the Doctor tested it.

"Testing, 1, 2, 3."

No response, other than static. It echoed, though. It was as if he were talking into a microphone in some kind of valley, and it the sound was reverberating off miles of land.

"Calling the Bug…"

The static stopped. The Doctor turned to Lizzie, as if he were signifying to her that the Bug had intercepted them.

"I know you can hear me. I want to know why you're here, and what you want with the Memory Graveyard."

There was nothing for a few moments, but those few moments, in which the Bug was presumably deciding what he was going to say, seemed to drag on forever.

The Doctor was about to speak again, when suddenly –

" _How did you find me here? Who are you?_ "

The Doctor was hesitant. "Intergalactic anti-terrorism. We've been watching you for some time."

" _Nobody watches me_."

It was just proof that the Bug had become rather accustomed to getting away with what he liked.

"We do. Sorry – your reign of terror has come to an end."

" _As if you could find me here_ ," the Bug hissed. It wasn't really a hiss – his voice was deep, and reverberating, but with a sort of clicking sound running alongside it – like the scuttling of insectoid legs. " _This dimension is infinite_."

"What do you want with it, then?"

Silence for a while.

" _Who are you?_ " it repeated again. Confusion was in its voice. They could tell that the Bug had never been confronted like it before – and that it had gained no wind of who they were.

"As I said. Intergalactic anti-terrorism. We were on a stake out, we saw you, and we were concerned you'd accidentally fallen in the pond, so we just dived in to check. Turns out, there's a whole dimension here!"

" _You are contradicting yourself_ ," the Bug snarled.

"Which one's true?" the Doctor winked at Lizzie, who laughed/cringed in response. "Here's how this is going to work," the Doctor's voice turned serious. "You're going to leave. Now."

The Bug laughed, a deep, mocking laugh. " _And what will you do, puny, little man? You are but a petulant snowflake, and I could crush you simply with a biology textbook on gender_."

The Doctor's voice turned very sour, then. "I'm coming to find you."

" _I can trigger you without even needing to open my eyes. And when I set the memories here alight, I will dowse the universe in fear, and in terror. The liberal cause will lose all momentum, when I hold them to ransom against everything they fear the most._ "

Lizzie sighed. Neoliberalism and the left, the right seemed to have a compulsion for getting them mixed up. Meanwhile the Doctor walked back from the screen in disgust, and took a deep breath, calming himself down.

"I will find you, and I will make sure that this is the last time you could ever threaten anyone with such an attack."

The Doctor cut the connection. _Stupid little man,_ Lizzie thought of the Bug.

"Lizzie," he turned to her. "Look, I don't want to have to ask this of you, but… I need you to go and find Iris. I'll be here, guiding you every step of the way – but I need to stay on this floor, in case the Bug makes another move."

He was talking as if he were trying to justify what he was saying. As if he felt he needed to justify what he was saying.

"You don't even need to ask," she nodded. He was gripping the edge of the screen, and his hands had turned red with the force.

"I can follow you on the screen," the Doctor reassured her, and she nodded.

"It's fine – we'll find her, don't worry."

The Doctor was picking through a pile of cardboard boxes that contained bundles of old cables and wires and webcams and mice (mouses? Neither of them were sure what the plural was of the technological input device), and eventually, an earpiece. He tossed it to her, and she slipped it in her ear.

"Lizzie, you're-"

She could see he felt guilty, but she understood that she had to be the one to go.

"Doctor, stop worrying about it," she laughed. "I'm fine with going, ha ha. I love Iris and I want her to be safe too." And she knew that she would do anything for her sister if ever she needed it

"I know, I know, and I love you for that, but – I just can't help but feel that this should be me. I'm meant to be her father."

"You _are_ her father."

"And this is my responsibility."

"I guess – you've changed so much since we first met," she said to him. He looked at her, honesty in his eyes. Sadness in his eyes, sadness like the time she had first met him. Except… unlike that time, when she had found him on her doorstep, he did not seem lost. He had found him. Iris had found him.

"I was so… empty, for so long," the Doctor said. "And I still get like that, but you, Lizzie Darwin, save me, every time. When Iris was growing up, and I just couldn't cope, you were always there, to help me. To look after Iris, if need be. You always listened, no matter… how stupid it was. Even now, you just listen, and usually I don't have a clue what's going on in your head. But all the time, I know that you, just listening to me, helps me more than I could ever know."

She shrugged it off.

"And you shrug it off," the Doctor said. "As if it means nothing – but it does."

Lizzie really wanted to tell him that it meant so much, hearing him say that, but she couldn't find the words that matched up to what she was thinking. Hearing him say that, though, meant so much to her – to know that somehow she had helped, brought her so much happiness. She smiled at him.

"Why the enigmatic smile?"

"I, er, don't know," she laughed. "It's just… like, I'm so happy you think that…"

"Please don't ever go anywhere."

"I won't."

There was a period of silence, as the Doctor pressed a few buttons on the screen, and Lizzie stood loitering beside one of the bookcases. Eventually he stepped back, and walked over to Lizzie.

"It's telepathic," the Doctor said. "You just need to think."

She was getting pretty scared about the place now – and about the power of thought in general. She had always been scared that bad thoughts meant that she was a bad person, and whenever something bad entered her head, she would always try as hard as possible to stop it before she properly thought of it. It sounded stupid, when explaining it out loud, because thoughts were only thoughts. But it was bad enough anyway – and even more terrifying when the realisation that those thoughts could become truths finally dawned on her.

The Doctor kissed her on the forehead. "Thank you."

"I'll be back in like… half an hour."

"No, but – this isn't something you should have to do, and you're doing it anyway. And that means a lot."

"Yeah, but… do you really think I'd have said no?"

She thought.

* * *

Lizzie opened the door. She was not sure that there was a door in front of her, and she didn't see it or feel it in front of her. All she knew was that she opened one, to get to wherever she was now. And she remembered putting her hand on a freezing cold handle – it was not a door that had been opened in a very long time. But it opened well, with an ease indicating that the door had been well designed. And when it did swing open, she realised that she was standing in some metal box, like a lift of some kind. Except there were no buttons on the walls or anything – she had thought her way down here.

As soon as the door opened, however, one of the first things she noticed was the silence. Not that it was any more silent than the previous floor – apart from the fact there was no conversation between the Doctor, Lizzie, or any intergalactic space terrorists. Bar said conversations, there hadn't been any noise at all. Though, in a very strange way, it had felt as if the sheer volume of 'stuff' had somehow led to the feeling that there _was_ some kind of constant sound. Relics of so many bright and noisy lives all laid to rest in the same room, providing a soundtrack to silence. The same went for the light as well – it felt darker. Ahead of her, she saw the corridor she was to walk down.

And so she started walking.

And nothing happened.

She was more surprised at the absence of anything than she would've been had a monster or a villain jumped out to try and scare her. She was more scared of nothing than she was of stuff. _Progress_ , she thought to herself – before she'd started travelling with the Doctor, she'd been scared of nothing _and_ stuff. She had since learned the benefits and drawbacks to both. When there was nothing, there was room for 'thing'. But there was also loneliness, and a lack of any hope at all. When there was stuff, there was familiarity – but also the fear that stuff could be holding something so dark and terrifying. Basically, she'd been scared of everything, and had loathed herself for it, and had ridiculed herself, and laughed at herself, and she still spent most of her time doing it anyway. She was, at least, distracted, as she watched the end of the corridor ahead of her, stepping, one step at a time.

As she went, she wondered what emotion harvesting meant. The whole place was sort of one huge crop of emotion. She theorised that, perhaps, emotion harvesting meant 'raw emotions', as if one could see sadness or joy or emptiness and could net it and bottle it up. Perhaps that was what the Doctor had meant, when he spoke about the human component... a human mind, powerful enough to harvest emotions. She thought about who had built the place – because who _would_ build a place like this? Unless it was naturally occurring, or something, but that seemed even more unlikely – as if the universe just plucked random things out of space and time for the sake of it. Still. It had proved itself pretty good at doing that anyway.

Emotion farmers. But why? Lizzie often found herself asking why. She was a naturally inquisitive person, and was always looking for some kind of deeper meaning in things. She read way too much into things, which sometimes was good – she saw what people missed. But it reduced her to a socially awkward ruin who was always worried that she'd upset someone or that something she'd done wasn't good enough or was awful. Paradoxical emotions. There didn't seem to be much deep meaning here, though. It was bad things. If something bad touched someone, it would go here. It was simple. Maybe there was a meaning, but it was so hidden that she was missing it. Perhaps it was completely obvious, and just going over her head. She sighed, and kept on going. There was another door at the end of the corridor – she was nearing it now.

Her mind was driving her crazy. Sometimes it would go into overdrive, when there were to many stimuli surrounding her, it was like she couldn't cope and just went into shut down. Everything was felt so deeply, that eventually, the feeling got too much.

And she would become numb.

She told herself to shut up, over and over again. But all the time, the constant feeling that the place didn't make sense, constantly nagging at her. It wasn't even on a scientific level – the Doctor talked about it like that, and so had Iris. But Lizzie saw something else wrong with it, in a completely different way. It was like having a jigsaw puzzle, but with one, lone, piece missing. A piece right in the middle, the one that brings the whole picture together.

For some reason, it had been linked to her home. To her den, to her escape. But why? Why, why, why? It made no sense. No sense, no sense, nonsense, nonsense,  
Nonsense.

She was at the end of the corridor now. She thought. The door opened, as expected.

"Lizzie?"

She wasn't hearing voices in her head, was she? It felt as if everything was falling apart, and for the briefest of seconds, she panicked.

"Iris?" she realised who the voice was. Telepathy. Of course. She'd said it over and over to herself, how simple it was. She'd told the Doctor how simple it was.

"How's tricks?" Iris asked, as Lizzie stepped into the next corridor. It was wider than the previous – by quite a margin. More like an atrium of some kind, perhaps. Again, there was nothing there. Now that she could hear Iris, the silence was not quite as bugging. But still she could feel it.

"Weird…" Lizzie continued. "I'm on your level. And there's nothing…"

"Nothing?"

"It's just corridors and halls and stuff. And that's _it_ …" she was hesitant about being so sure about it being 'it', because it very rarely was 'it'.

"Somewhere there'll be a door that'll take you outside."

Lizzie stopped walking. "You're outside?"

"… yeah?"

She looked around at the corridors. It all seemed too dark and too claustrophobic for an outside to even exist in wherever they were.

"No, it's fine," Lizzie started walking again, forgetting about it. "Everything in here just feels so manmade, that's all. The idea of an outside just feels… different."

"There's fields for as far as I can see."

"But you can't see any buildings?" Lizzie asked.

"Nope."

 _Bit of a trek, then._

"It's fine, though," Iris was laughing. "I've met someone."

"Oh? Who?"

" _Melvyn_. He's a talking rabbit. I've turned straight."

"All it took was an anthropomorphic rabbit…"

"He's like the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, except he speaks in a cockney accent, and he's a chauvinist pig."

Lizzie loved that book. A little girl who got taken to some strange and magical land. "I love that book…"

"So do I. It's one of my favourites. Honestly, Lizzie, it's just… stunning here. The sun is setting, and I can see the stars in the sky. Daaaamn gurl. Bring me my telescope."

Lizzie was reminded of how different the two of them were. Lizzie saw sunsets and saw beauty, but she saw it through colour and emotion and poetry, and words and song lyrics that all seemed to come at once. Iris saw beauty as well – but saw it through science. That somehow, the great clock that was the universe, had aligned its hands at that precise moment, leading to a great explosion of burning light in the sky – and the fact that the chances of her being there at those exact moments must be so, so tiny, that became beautiful as well.

 _I'd love to be out there_ , Lizzie thought.

"Yeah," Iris nodded. "You would. It's very 'you'."

Lizzie stopped when she realised that Iris had somehow heard that. Then she remembered. Telepathy. And then she realised that Iris could hear –

"Yes, Lizzie. I can hear everything. Well, I don't know if 'hear' is the right word. I can sense it, I can… see it. Science just isn't working for me right now and it's messing with my head."

She stepped back against the wall, her head flopping backwards in embarrassment.

"Why are you embarrassed?" Iris asked.

"Wouldn't you be, if somebody could read your thoughts?" Lizzie was surprised. She kept all sorts of stuff in her head, and this idea that somebody could hear it was like realising that somebody was filming you constantly in your own house. Except… worse. They were _her_ thoughts, _hers_ to hold onto and nobody else's. There was stuff she needed to tell people, for sure. But she would do that in her own time.

"… nope, not really. If they want lesbian porn and reruns of _House_ , then that's up to them."

Lizzie smiled and kept on walking. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"Look, big sis. Your mind is amazing. And I knew that cause you're such a closeted gal you'd shut it off as soon as I told you."

 _You can't shut off thoughts…_

"No, but you can try and think about other things," Iris heard her think. Lizzie sighed again, and tried to close off her mind, as Iris had said. "See!" Iris cried. "You're doing it! Shutting up. Please don't."

"I don't like you nosing in my head…"

"Okay – it's up to you. Your thoughts, you get to choose. But seriously – you've got so much to say," Iris' voice was reassuring. She was not malicious at all – she was so chilled out, all the time. Lizzie envied her for that. "Honestly," Iris continued. "All those thoughts that you always say 'uhhh I can't find words for them'. They're amazing thoughts. Scary sometimes. Sometimes hilarious. You're quite funny, actually. And so clever. But you won't do anything about it cause you're a piece of anxious trash."

"This is true," Lizzie agreed. It was reassuring, the more she thought about it. And the more she thought about it, the more reassured she became, as she became more aware that Iris was seeing more and more of her thoughts. "Fine. Go on, have a look through."

For so many years, there had been thoughts that she hadn't been able to find words for, and finally, she didn't have to. She could communicate them to someone, so somebody could understand her for how she _wanted_ to be understood. It was like talking to someone about all the problems she'd faced over the years, without even needing to talk about them. There was just somebody there to understand. "Like… I don't know."

"Oh my god Liiiiizzz. Why don't you tell anyone about this stuff…"

"Because I don't think...," she sighed when she realised that she could conduct this entire conversation in her head without even needing to open her mouth. "I don't think people want to know. And well… um, they really don't need to listen to me… whining."

"You need to whine! Whining is good, whine to me, please."

"You don't want to hear about… me, and the weird stuff in my head –"

"I do."

"You don't."

"I do!" Iris insisted.

"I'm nearly at the next door," Lizzie changed the subject.

"I can literally see you changing the subject!"

She thought about something else. Maggie. Maggie was a good place to start – one day it'd be hilarious if she came on the TARDIS, and they went travelling, or something. It'd probably be all bloody this and bloody that, but it'd be a laugh.

"Who's Maggie?"

"My support worker," Lizzie didn't even try and fight the fact that she was thinking.

"But you left care years ago?"

"Yeah but... as you said. Anxious trash here."

* * *

Iris took a sip from her hot chocolate, having poured herself another – she was on glass number three now. The jug seemed to be bigger on the inside, for there was a seemingly infinite supply of hot chocolate. Melvyn had long grown bored and was mucking about with some kind of intergalactic Tinder on his phone.

"Jesus! That _tail…_ "

Iris had overheard all sorts of vile comments from Melvyn in the last half an hour.

"Sorry," she said to Lizzie. "He's a bit of a – anyway."

"Oi!" Melvyn looked up. "I'll have you know I'm the one who's looking out for you! So button it!"

Iris giggled, and sat back, sipping her hot chocolate, and listening in to Lizzie's thoughts. She found herself so concerned for the girl that was like a sister to her. She wondered what it would be like if everyone could hear the thoughts of everyone else, whether it would be so much better, or so much worse. It was spooky, though – seeing the contents of someone's thoughts, as if they were box, and you could simply search through its contents.

There was something beautiful in the way that life worked. How trillions of cells could somehow come together and build such a complex and magnificent thing capable of something so much more than the simple cell that it had come from. People often stereotyped scientists for being cold and distant and detached people, but Iris saw more beauty in science than anything else. The way that random bits of simplicity that had nothing to do with each other could somehow work in unison and harmony meant more to her than anything else. Sometimes, she didn't even need to be especially curious – she could just sit, and watch, a scene. Lizzie once told her how she did the same – but, of course, for different reasons. No… Iris liked to watch for the science. For all the hearts beating at once, supporting everything, keeping life pumping through, keeping it fuelled and always ready to go. The way engines roared from a simple spark of light, and brought light and motion to the universe. She would sit and watch a city, life bleeding through it, and think that it all came from a few scientific scribbles on a bit of paper.

Simplicity becoming so much more.

She was so similar to Lizzie, and yet so different at the same time. That's why she always called Lizzie her sister – because that's what siblings were. People that are so close, but so different, and best friends as well.

It only then dawned on her that Melvyn had stopped making sanctimonious and vaguely sexist remarks.

She looked over, and the rabbit was gone.

"Melvyn?" she called. "Melvyn?!"

"Is this… the rabbit?" Lizzie said, telepathically.

"He's gone… just vanished."

As she looked around her, she knew that – well, she didn't know anything. By all logic, he should be within sight – the fields stretched for miles around, and she could see for a great distance. A rabbit dressed like Melvyn would stick out from quite a distance as well.

"He was stupid, but… he was company."

Iris suddenly felt very alone, sat in the middle of the fields stretching on for as far as her eyes could see. And suddenly, there was a chill in the air. She looked down, and her hot chocolate didn't seem quite as appealing as it had done a few seconds ago. Iris pulled her jacket, trying to block out the chill, but it was as if it reached further than that, and pulling her jacket made no difference at all. Something had changed – it was something very minor, but it had made the once-beautiful landscape turn into something so much… eerier.

"Lizzie…"

"Yeah?"

"Don't go anywhere."

"I won't. Are you alright?"

"Mmhmm," Iris murmured, glancing around her. She was not just 'mmhmm', she was a lot more scared than that. Rationally, there was very little to be scared of. If anything did come to get her, she'd be able to spot it from ages away. However, she had already established that wherever she was, it had very little compliance with science, and so was not willing to leave it to chance. "Logically, there's nothing to be scared of. But I can just feel it…"

 _Story of my life_ , she heard Lizzie thought.

"You feel everything so… goddam deeply…," Iris muttered, in a way slightly envious, and also in a way slightly glad, that she didn't feel like Lizzie did. Iris looked up, and the stars in the sky were gone. "I've just realised why I've been confused, right from the start."

"Why?"

"It doesn't mean anything, now I think about it. But I just suddenly realised, that the stars in the sky were completely different to anything I've seen before."

"This place is… well… completely different, I guess…"

"Yes. A whole new dimension, supposedly. Physics-defying, according to Melvyn. Damn, I already miss his woman-hating white fluffy arse. Point is – the stars that didn't make any sense have gone."

 _Do stars do that?_ She heard Lizzie think. _I've spent so long looking at stars, and I've never seen them do that – not nearly as long as Iris, though'._

"No, stars don't do that," Iris zipped up her jacket. "And it's…"

The lights went out.

* * *

Again, another corridor. This one was thinner, a bit like the first one. Lizzie felt as if she was getting closer to something – as she walked, there was a deep, reverberating pulse, somewhere inside her. It was as if somehow, her heart was being pulled towards something. Her occasionally-superstitious streak bleeding through, she wondered if it was some kind of sign…

"Lizzie, okay, I know I asked before, but please, don't go anywhere. At all."

The words were quick, and desperate. Iris _was_ scared. Terrified. She was not a good liar, and when Lizzie heard the fear, her pace increased.

"What's happened, Iris?"

"It's dark."

"Okay… I don't think I'm far away now."

"Please, Lizzie, you have to – have to –"

Iris' voice was rushing, and Lizzie could hear her breathing – it was as if she was clawing for air that just kept scrabbling away from her. It reminded Lizzie of panic attacks from days-gone-by: and so she ran, now, through the narrow corridor. The fear of absence that had once spooked her no longer bothered her – she just had to get to Iris, wherever she was, no matter what she would have to go through.

They were like family.

They were family.

It was then that Lizzie fully grasped it – they didn't just bear similarities to siblings – they _were_ siblings. Blood related they may not be, but the desperation that Lizzie had to find Iris was reminiscent of nothing she had ever felt before – and she knew, from that moment, that they were siblings.

"I can't see anything," Iris wept. "Please, Lizzie, please, please, just –"

The door was ahead of her – Lizzie was getting closer. She knew – she felt the internal reverberance of all the pain and suffering and phobias and fears and dreams, all beating inside her at once, as if they were the blood pumping through her, and as if her heart was beating for all of these things at once.

The door grew closer.

It was almost unbearable now, all of it running through her. But she couldn't stop – she could hear Iris' voice, the fear and the tears, all at once. Everything she felt, physically, did not matter, because at that moment, she was beyond any of that. Lizzie had once been a terrified little girl – and she remembered Iris, when she was so small. As she listened to the Doctor's daughter weep – to her sister weep – she was just remembered of those days.

And so she ran.

And she reached the door.

She pushed it open, and stepped into a room.

What she saw changed everything.

* * *

Now, she stood in a hall. It was quite sizeable, but empty, bar another door at the end. Except, the other door at the end was like that of a portcullis – grandiose, and powerful, and definitely intended for keeping things in, or keeping things out. Lizzie was not sure which. The reverberations died down – she didn't feel the same pressure forcing her heart as she did before. However – it was still there, pulsing away, somewhere, hidden away. There was something drawing her to that door. She wanted to know what was inside – she had to know what was inside. Humans were naturally curious animals, and all her instincts were clawing towards the great door.

She remembered reading once that human instinct was almost impossible to overrule. She'd always thought that if that were the case, then it would be possible to somehow overrule it with an instinct that was more powerful.

Her theory was proven, as her desire to see what was on the other side of this great, opaque portcullis was usurped.

Iris was slumped in the middle of the hall. It all looked so impossible – because in the mass of cold, grey walls and floors, and in front of this huge great door, beyond which Lizzie _knew_ lay something powerful, there was the simple, lying body of a girl. She was vulnerable – like the little girl that so many years ago (so many days ago for Lizzie), she had held, when she was just a new-born baby. Juxtaposed against death and badness and sadness, the girl looked even more alive than she had done, even when she was consciousness.

Iris looked even more alive.

Everything down to the clothes she wore, and her silky, flowing brunette hair, was contrasted against all this emptiness. It was unbearable.

"Iris? Can you – can you still hear me?"

"Yes? Lizzie, please don't go anywhere. It's all gone dark, I, I can't see. Please."

Iris relied on science, and that logic was gone. Any concept of understanding could not be found for her – Iris had said that to her once. That she found beauty in the randomness of science, and somehow finding some explanation to that randomness. But they had been thrown into a land where there was no such explanation, where the rules of the universe did not apply. This was a land of emotion, a land of people, captured at single moments. Memories, in single moments.

And science didn't work in memories.

"Doctor," Lizzie put a finger to her earpiece. She'd expected to need the Doctor, for… moral support, or something, as she traversed down to the bottom of the graveyard.

She did not think she would have to tell him this.

"Lizzie?" his voice came back through.

She tried to find the words – but she didn't know what they were. She was alive – Lizzie had checked her pulse. But she was unconscious. But she was still thinking. Still hearing. Still feeling. She could, somehow, see into Lizzie's thoughts. But she was not awake, she was asleep. It was like Iris was trapped inside her own head. There was that thing – locked-in syndrome. Quite a chilling idea – that one could not undertake any kind of human action, and yet still be thinking, constantly, all the time.

"Lizzie, what is it? Is it Iris, is she alright?"

Lizzie still didn't say anything.

"Lizzie!" his voice was getting more and more urgent. She'd have to say something. "Lizzie! Please, what is it? Lizzie!"

She eventually replied.

"You need to come down here."

"What's happened? Is Iris okay?"

"I – I don't know. She's still… alive, in some way or another," Lizzie could still hear Iris pleading with her, in her ear, as they were still communicating telepathically. "I've been talking to her. But she's in this… huge room, just lying there, in the middle of the floor, and she's not responding to anything."

The Doctor's silence indicated his bemusement.

"Right… I'm coming down."

* * *

Via a quick bit of techno-babbling, the Doctor had shown Lizzie how to set up a teleport link between the two of them, making use of Lizzie's earpiece. Before long, he appeared in front of her, and dashed straight over to his daughter.

"Oh… this was a stupid, stupid idea," he picked her up, cradling her in her arms, just as he'd done when she was small. "Iris, please. Please, come back."

There was no response.

"Iris? Your dad is here…," Lizzie was still talking to her telepathically.

"Please, Lizzie," Iris' voice came through. "Tell him to actually do something useful for once."

"Iris?" the Doctor said, even though he knew it was a telepathic link. "It's like… like she's created some sort of dream state for herself."

It made sense. The planet thing, with the bright orange skies, and the stars. Gallifrey had a burned orange sky, and Iris had always loved the science behind the stars. And Melvyn the White Rabbit – Alice in Wonderland was Iris' favourite book. She'd been inside her own memories. As if she was inside an account of her own life.

The Doctor knew what he had to do.

Still holding Iris in his arms, he placed two fingers on her forehead.

"What are you going to do?" Lizzie asked him. _Bring her back?_

"Exactly what you did," the Doctor smiled up at her, and then looked down at his daughter. "Except… I'm going to go one step further."

The Doctor, just like that, fell asleep.

* * *

Iris looked up, at the small light ahead of her.

There was a light switch, floating in thin air – a domestic sort of switch, found in houses. Nothing fancy – apart from the obvious fact it was just… there. Not attached to any electrics, not mounted to any walls – just a switch.

And Dad, standing next to it.

"Dad!" Iris jumped up from the garden chair and ran over to her.

"Happy birthday," the Doctor kissed her, and took out a box with a felt cover. He presented it to his daughter.

"It's… not my birthday," she took it from him.

"We don't exist! It can be what we want it to be! Now go on! Open it…"

Iris grinned up at him – always bending the laws of time and space and science in general, just to get his own way. She sighed, and opened the box. Inside, was a bracelet; a metal band, with little silver animals attached with little tiny, loops and hooks. There was an elephant, a giraffe, a cat – a few alien species. An owl, and a tiny little grasshopper.

"It's… beautiful," she slipped it on.

"It's a cop-out, really," the Doctor sighed. "Mum and I have been making it for you, ever since you were tiny. One charm a decade. We planned to give it to you for your next birthday, but I thought, there's no time like the present. Geddit?"

Iris laughed in the way that one does when a joke is so horrendously bad it's kind of amusing. The sort of laugh that practically goes in a buy-one-get-one-free bundle with Dad jokes. She kissed him, and stood back, pointing to the table. "Fancy a hot chocolate?"

"Oh, yes please. I'm parched," he took a seat opposite her, and she poured it for him, from the glass jug. When he took a sip, he instantly relaxed. "This is amazing."

"Yep."

"You clearly invented good hot chocolate in your dream world."

Iris stopped dead. "What?"

"You're in your memories, Iris."

"Impossible. I can't be in my memories."

"You are."

"I'm not!"

This bickering was, clearly, going to last for a very long time, if one of them didn't put a stop to it. They had often bickered – in a kind of jokey way. 'Banter', Iris had said once. When the Doctor used the same word, Iris had said something about her needing to regenerate to forget that he'd ever said it.

"Iris, you met a talking rabbit."

"Who says rabbits can't talk?" she couldn't believe she was defending Melvyn.

"You. Remember the biology assignment when you started at the academy?"

"The biology assignment? As in the reason that I gave up biology? Yeah, I do, funnily enough."

"Why _did_ you do that?" the Doctor asked, out of sheer curiosity, despite the fact he was fine with her decision. Iris sighed, again, fed up that the Doctor seemed desperate to pick through the bones of every decision she ever made. She would, for once in her life, like to be able to make a decision and live with the consequences, whether they be good or bad.

"Because biology is impossible when we live in an ever growing, ever evolving universe such as our own. Which is why talking rabbits exist. Physics stays put. Unless you end up here."

"Think about doughnuts."

"I'm sorry?"

The Doctor was reminded of a trip they'd been on, years and years ago, when Iris was still young. The largest doughnut farm in the quadrant – Iris had loved it. Children loved doughnuts, though. Especially Iris – but she'd always had a sweet tooth.

Suddenly, a plate of warm, just-out-of-the-oven doughnuts, popped up in front of Iris, on the garden table.

"That was a coincidence," Iris shrugged it off, taking a doughnut, because even if they were fictitious, they still tasted really good. "You must've picked doughnuts because you knew that would happen."

"Go on then," the Doctor sat back. Iris offered him a doughnut, and he took it. The great thing about the dream world was that they could eat as much as they wanted and wouldn't leave with even the slightest risk of diabetes. "You think of something – and it will appear."

Iris sighed a teenager-y sigh.

"Fine. I'm going to think about… ooh. I know!"

Iris closed her eyes, as if she were really trying to think. The Doctor laughed to himself because it would have no bearing on the situation at all, and she just looked a bit stupid.

Then, in front of her, buzzing around in front of her eyes, was a tiny, glowing insect. It glowed a bright light – the light being a colour neither of them had seen before. The Doctor blinked – it was impossible.

"What...?" he looked at the insect, as it buzzed around Iris and her hair. Iris looked up at it – it was almost butterfly like.

It was beautiful.

As the Doctor had already realised, it was a new colour. One cannot possibly comprehend what a new colour looks like, because the only colours that can possibly exist are those colours in the light spectrum that we all see day in, day out. But somehow, as they were in this strange place where science did not apply, there was a colour, that lay outside of all the other colours. Such a colour would be impossible to describe, as when describing something, you usually have to be able to compare it to something. As this colour was something brand new, there was _nothing_ to compare it to – apart from the fact it was different.

"You told me to imagine something… so I imagined something impossible," Iris laughed, playing with the butterfly-like insect in her hair.

"What did you imagine?" the Doctor admired it.

"I imagined a glowfly. But, a glowfly that glowed a brand-new colour. You know, Dad, I take it back. I'm in my memories. Now, have you got a thin bit of card?"

The Doctor reached into his pocket and pulled out a scrunched-up bit of paper. He tossed it over to her, and she unfolded it, keeping it ready over the top of one of the glasses.

"What are you trying to do?" the Doctor asked. Iris stood up, as if she were in battle position. The glass was ready, the paper was ready.

"Well – if I've imagined a completely unique glowfly, I can't let it go without letting Mum at least see it."

The glowfly darted to her left, and Iris dived with the glass, trying to scoop it up with the glass. She missed, flying forwards, and the glowfly buzzed back around the back of her head. She waited, in a cat-like position, for the glowfly to buzz around again. She swung around, glass in hand, and in one swift motion, she caught it. Sticking the paper to the glass with some sticky tape she'd 'thought' out of thin air, she sat down, poked some airholes in the paper, and sat opposite her father.

"Iris," the Doctor started, but she interrupted him.

"Dad, please let's not do sentimentality, it irritates me."

"No – listen, please."

"Iris, I shouldn't have brought you here. I'm a… reckless and irresponsible father."

"Cool, apology accepted, let's go."

She looked up at the Doctor, who was looking… rather annoyed.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Why are you always trying to… push me away?"

"I'm not!" Iris protested, but the Doctor wasn't going to stop.

"Anything I do, anything I say, you just don't care."

"I'm just not a very… touchy-feely person," Iris sat back, resigning herself to the fact she wouldn't be going anywhere until they talked. She maintained that, though. Touchy-feely, far from it, she did not like being the centre of attention. Hence why she had decided to rifle through Lizzie's memories, so Lizzie could be the protagonist and so she could sit on the sidelines being sarcastic and fun. No talking about herself, she could just… enjoy being there. Which is why whenever anyone suggested talking about herself, Iris wanted to up sticks and go as far away as possible. As did Lizzie, come to think of it, as she had seen when poking around in her head. But it would've been a rather uninteresting journey had none of them had any inclination to talk about anything that went on in any of their lives. Or at least, it would've been had Lizzie been the one doing the rifling. After all, as Iris and her darling sister used to joke, Lizzie did not speak. She merely stood awkwardy.

"I know," the Doctor understood her. "But – sometimes it'd be nice to have a flicker of… some kind of… understanding, that we are actually. You know – related. Instead you just... hide behind jokes."

"And I wonder where I get the bad jokes from. But anyway - I am actually my own person as well, Dad."

"I'm not saying you're not, and I understand, but –"

Iris knew that he did not understand. Nobody ever wondered what it would be like to have the Doctor as a parent. After all – he had a universal reputation. A reputation for all sorts. She often wondered whether it was okay that she tried to divorce herself from that reputation as much as possible. She didn't dare tell him that it scared her, sometimes. That he scared her. When you hear stories of your father doing such impossible thing, it would be very hard not to be terrified.  
In fact – she did not care about that stuff. He was her Dad – but what she wanted more than anything was for her to be _her_. For the way she lived to be fully, completely, the way that _she_ wanted to live, and not the way her parents decided to dictate how she should live. She wanted to be Iris, not just a product of her parents, as much as she adored them. _Iris._

"You don't though," she admitted. "Look – I love you, Dad. Like, super amazeballs so much. Okay? But you've got no idea what it's like being me. I'm trying to live _my_ life, and that's really, really hard to do when you're my Dad."

"Why?"

"Because you're the Doctor!" She stopped, when she realised she was crying. And then she started again. "You're – you're the Doctor. You save planets, you save people. You make mistakes. You basically started the Time War, you defeated God. And look, right now, we came here on some kind of adrenaline-driven quest to find an intergalactic terrorist."

The Doctor stared at the ground, as if finally, somebody had caught him out.

"And," Iris continued. "I know you've always said, and that Mum has always said, that I don't need to worry about. But people do actually know who I am, funnily enough. And they know who you are. And sometimes, just _sometimes,_ they say things. Things about the Time War, and how you started it. And I know that what they say means nothing, but they say it because of me. And… I don't want to be that person."

The Doctor was looking for some words to say, but he couldn't find any. "I'm – I'm sorry," was all he could manage.

"It isn't your fault," Iris said. "It's not even specifically you, being a kind of fairytale character – I'd want this no matter _who_ you were. For me to be me. You can't help it – and I can't help it. I just… I just wanna be the sassy, gayer than heck gal that I am."

"And you can be."

"Sorry… it just… scares me, sometimes."

The Doctor got off his chair, and walked over to her. She stood up, and he hugged her.

"Don't be scared," he whispered. "You don't need to be."

"I know – but I am, occasionally. Terrified. Cause you, you have so many enemies. And have done so many amazing things. And, I'm scared of your enemies, and I live in the shadow of those things. But I don't want to."

"Iris, please, understand this. You don't have to live in my shadow, ever. You are your own person, you are _you._ Irisesisoculiesus. Be her. Embrace her."

"Why'd you have to give me such a stupid full name…"

"Because Mum wanted to enact some of the same pain she suffered on to you."

Iris laughed, and the Doctor laughed as well. It would take a while, for Iris to feel… better. But at least she was reassured now, by her Dad, that she could be herself, and not what anyone expected her to be. That meant a lot to her, even if she wouldn't convey it (due to her utter detestation of sentimentality).

"Can we stay? For like… half an hour?"

The Doctor suddenly realised that Iris was holding a telescope and a notepad.

"I want to see some of the stars here… because… I didn't recognise them."

The Doctor glanced at his watch, before remembering that time didn't matter here. They could be back at the Memory Graveyard just after they'd left, if they wanted to.

"Of course," the Doctor placed a hand on her shoulder.

Iris grabbed a chair from the garden table, and dragged it over to the edge of the hill. She set up the telescope, and sat behind it. The Doctor grabbed the other chair, and joined her. Iris was silent for a minute or two, as she studied the stars above her.

"That's why I didn't recognise them…"

"What is it?"

"It's like a… greatest hits compilation."

"… what?"

Iris recognised all of the star systems now. She just didn't recognise them all jumbled up together. They were all star systems that she'd viewed before – and these were all of her favourites. Those that somehow, because of completely random instances, had ended up more beautiful than the others. Science was random – a certain degree of randomness, combined with a certain degree of deep complexity and accuracy. And sometimes, science couldn't explain any of it - sometimes, things were just unexplainable - but so magic.

And when those things came together, they formed something impossibly stunning - Iris, seeing those stars.

But it all hinged on that random moment.

Life kind of did that as well, though.

* * *

"Please… let me sleep for longer."

Lizzie was sat beside them, when Iris and the Doctor began to wake up. They looked surprisingly alike, for some reason – now more than ever before.

"Oh… erm, hey," Lizzie said to Iris. "You alright?"

"Probably. Pfft, what do I know. Yeah, I think so," Iris laughed, and hugged Lizzie. The Doctor was awake as well, and Lizzie smiled at him. She saw how relieved he was that Iris was okay. In fact – he seemed better than he'd done before – even before Iris had disappeared.

"Now," the Doctor walked over to a screen on the far wall. "To business."

Both Lizzie and Iris, in their sisterly moments of blissful reunion, had forgotten about the Bug – the intergalactic space terrorist that was, somewhere not too far away from them, on the rampage. They walked over to the Doctor, who was attaching some… USB thing to the monitor.

"When Lizzie came to find you, Iris, I did some digging. And, it turns out that there's a lot of documentation here, regarding the Bug's actions. Think about it – a terrorist that's taken thousands of lives, all over the universe. Somewhere, something to do with it was obviously going to end up –"

Then the door at the side of the room opened – not the big portcullis one, but the other, smaller one, from which Lizzie had entered earlier.

It was the first time than any of them had seen the Bug in person. His image was renown across the universe, of course, having appeared on news articles for the past whoever-knows how many years. The armour he wore was like a reinforced skin, protecting him from explosions and gunfire. A teleportation device was embedded into his wrist, so he could instantly escape from the scene of the attack. Great wings were attached to his back – moth-like wings, so he could fly away from the great fires he started.

When the Doctor, Lizzie, and Iris saw it, they became locked in a Western-esque visual standoff, as the three of them moved towards the centre of the room. Then, eventually the Bug spoke.

"So – you are the petulant man I have spoken with… and who are these… girls?"

"Ah, Bug. Pleasure – this is Lizzie, my best friend, and this is Iris, my daughter. I wouldn't get on the wrong side of them – they're both rather clever."

"One never heard of a woman with any rationality or logic at all," the Bug laughed to itself, and Lizzie had to grab Iris' hand to prevent her from dashing over to the Bug and tearing it apart limb from limb. "You will move, you disgusting worms. Give me access to the Emotion Harvest –"

 _So this was the harvest,_ Lizzie glanced at the door behind her. She assumed that's why she'd been so drawn to it before.

"So you can do what?" the Doctor asked.

The Bug sniggered to itself. "So I can shroud the universe in a veil of ultimate fear and terror."

"What do you think, Ladies? I mean… I'm not sure, myself."

"Ha ha," Iris laughed sarcastically. "Nope. Me neither."

"Nor me," Lizzie muttered awkwardly. She hated drama at school, and it just so happened that before the Doctor was about to be really clever he liked to show off a bit. She smiled, however, because she knew that the really clever bit was coming.

"You thrive on the fact that the media and the government do, well, basically nothing, to stop your attacks," the Doctor explained. "They don't, because you're – well, a human white male – and we all know that white men are incapable of doing such things as – well…"

"Hanging gay people from gateposts?" Iris suggested.

"Exactly," the Doctor gave his daughter a mocking pat on the back. "And burning Zygons at the stake. And setting fire to spaceships from the other clusters. My point is, everything you do, it's ignored, firstly by the government, and secondly, by the media."

"Because they know the people see my way is correct! Your liberal culture is dead, little man! Nobody supports it anymore. You are the minority."

"Er – don't think so."

"The left are failures! You cannot win! Everyone despises this way of thinking, sick of having their mouths bound and their free speech silenced by political correctness. They are sick of having your agendas shoved down their throats, day in, and day out –"

" _Our_ agendas shoved down their throats?"

"They tire of it! And they tire of _you._ "

"Do they?" the Doctor nodded, his face grim. "Well… look. How about a game?"

Lizzie looked back at the screen, the one he'd been fiddling with earlier. And she saw some letters. She realised exactly what the Doctor was doing.

And it was really clever.

The Bug nodded in agreement to the Doctor's suggestion.

"I broadcast the full extent of your crimes all over the universe. Everything you've done, everything the governments and the media keep quiet about, everything that the normal people don't know about. And if there's not any backlash? Then okay. Fine. You win. And for good measure, you can blow this place up."

In any normal situation, Lizzie would be concerned – the Doctor was banking quite a lot on there being a backlash. She was concerned anyway – what if people _didn't_ care? Where would they be then? Though, she remembered, the Doctor had faith in people. If he didn't – he wouldn't do this.

The Bug resisted. He was hesitant. If it was possible to see concern in those great, bulbous, insectoid eyes, it would be burning. It wasn't sure if the game was up. So it stayed quiet, thinking of its next move. Because it seemed to believe that it _did_ have time for a next move.

"Did I mention?"

The Doctor's lips curled up into a smile.

"The game isn't optional."

Lizzie looked back over at the screen, to see what the words said then.

 **UPLOAD COMPLETE.**

 **BROADCASTING.**

The Bug roared.

* * *

The true extent of what was buried in the Memory Graveyard was huge. Due to the Bug's almighty repertoire of terror attacks over the millennia, there was huge amounts of evidence against it. News reports, of course – but governmental reports as well. Reports that told the story the governments and the media tried to keep hidden. And there was home footage as well – footage of corpses missing faces and fingers. Broken bodies beneath old buildings. There were transcripts of interviews with police officers, with anti-terror units, interviewing survivors of disgusting, brutal culls of humanity.

And then came the phone calls. Phone calls between loved ones, the last phone calls people had made to the people they loved most of all – often nothing to do with the attacks themselves, often musing on what they were to eat for dinner – but those were the last calls that had been made. And there were voicemails too, like a footprint on the world that would be treasured forever. Emails, text messages, birthday cards and half-filled-in forms. Streaming from the Memory Graveyard came the grief from people who had lost their dearest – an infinitesimal tsunami cascading over the universe, alongside the sheer potential of the lost, and the energy of the days that never came, the days that should've been shared between lovers, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers. Nieces and nephews and grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. All of it burned with a solemn ferocity.

It was, within those few seconds, that some of the greatest atrocities ever committed, and the pain that came with them, was broadcasted to every screen, all over the universe, at exactly the same moment. Simultaneous viewing, of the Bug, and the governments and the media that had supressed the true nature of his crimes.

In the great glass spires of the ShadowStar spaceship, sat in her office, observing a majestic, burning star, Elle Mthembu was told to turn on the news. There was no other information – no indication as to what she would be witnessing when she did. She wasn't in the mood – it had been a long day. The Doctor had just… disappeared, with no suggestion as to where he would be going. Information was still becoming available of the Bug's next strike. She hadn't slept in days, and just wanted to get some rest – but work needed to be done. She typed the last few sentences of her report, and then turned on the television at the far end of the room.

When she did, she smiled, and cheered (quietly, to herself – she couldn't have any of her employees thinking she was having too much fun).

She grimaced as well – there were images visible that she'd only seen after hacking news archives and government systems. Gory pictures that were _always_ kept hidden. There were images on the screen that truly portrayed the hatred and violence and suffering that the Bug had committed itself to over the centuries. Elle saw clips from the Dugilbih Massacres, and the Suffocations on the Hill of Blades, and more, and more. It was then, as she heard the final goodbye between a husband and a wife, that she placed a hand to her cheek, and realised that she was crying.

She knew, as well, that finally, they had him.

Meanwhile, in the heart of some strange dimension that didn't really exist, the Doctor, his daughter, and his best friend, watched, as the Bug truly grasped the reality of what was happening. The Bug fell down, as he saw that finally, he was going to be held accountable.

"For too long, people have ignored you. Deliberately," the Doctor walked over to the fallen creature. "They've brushed your crimes under the carpet, because they'd rather blame someone else. They'd rather blame someone else, just so they can hate them. But that stops, and it stops now," the Doctor knelt down by the Bug. "So many people will never get to live the lives they deserved, because of the people _you've_ murdered."

"P – p," it spluttered. It was trying to say something but the words were buried under the scale of what was happening.

The Doctor looked over at the screen on the far wall. There were protests, all over the universe, in every galaxy, on every planet. All sorts of people, with placards and chants and slogans and banners and a unity that hadn't been seen before, had come out onto the streets. They were campaigning for something – they wanted the Bug to be stopped. There were news broadcasts as well – newspaper articles too – all of them determined to be on the right side of history, now spouting the vitriol the Bug deserved.

 _Just covering their own backs_ , the Doctor scowled.

"What was that?" he said to the Bug.

"Pl – puh – please."

The Bug was pleading with him. Its deep, menacing voice was shaking, trembling, and it started to crack. Underneath that mask, there was deep, hoarse, breathing, and sniffling as well.

The Bug was crying.

"You don't deserve mercy," the Doctor reached behind the back of the Bug's head, and placed two fingers on the clasps of his mask. "Time to find out who you really are…"

The Doctor's fingers pressed, and he felt the mask come away in his hands. Lizzie and Iris had come closer. The three of them didn't look at the Bug's face for a few seconds. They looked away, listening to his breathing, his crying, his sobbing, and his pleading. It was no longer alien, no longer menacing.

The man beneath the mask was no more than a boy. No more than a few years fresh from puberty, he was so young. His hair was greasy and matted, his face scarred and sweaty. He cried, like the little boy he was, and the Doctor scowled at him, mercilessly.

"Go to hell."

The boy continued to sob, as the Doctor turned, and walked away from him. He was somebody who had been bred with so much hatred and bile over the years, that he had started to do what he did. The Doctor could not look at him again. Lizzie watched him, crying on the floor, not even protesting. He knew the game was up. Even after all the life he'd taken, all it took was to reveal him for what he really was, and it had brought his reign of terror crashing down.  
Iris, then, walked up to him.

"By the way, can I just mention that I'm so gay it's on a level incomparable to anything you've seen before. Anyways I'm not a thespian but look, you're literally the slimiest little weasel I've ever had the misfortune of laying eyes on. Capiche, bitch?"

The Bug looked up at her, but he didn't say anything.

"Iris, leave him be," the Doctor said. "You shouldn't have to speak to… to that."

"I did what I believed was –"

"Don't even try and justify it," the Doctor shook his head.

The Bug looked at Lizzie, as if he were looking for one, final, remnant of human kindness.

All she gave him was one, final look of pity, to someone radicalised by something horrific - someone who had been turned into a monster.

Then she left.

* * *

"Dimensional scoop," Elle Mthembu was sat on the other side of a glass desk. The Doctor, Lizzie and Iris were lounging on leather chairs, in an office with a great observational window, over a great cloud of bright, colourful dust. Elle's desk was perfect – six ballpoints were lined up in a stunningly similar formation, and a Newton's cradle sat at the front. The three of them didn't actually understand – a blink of an eye ago, they'd been stood in the Memory Graveyard, with the Bug crumpled down on the floor in front of them. And now they were there.

Elle was looking over at them. When the Doctor finally realised he was, he stood up. "Did you get him?" he asked her.

"He's being held on the ship," Elle confirmed, smiling. "Well done."

"No… it shouldn't have ended up like that."

"What you on about, Dad?" Iris said. "He was a monster. A piece of… yeah, we've been there."

"He was, definitely," the Doctor stood, looking out of the window, thoughtfully. Elle waited patiently for him to continue, while Iris also waited, albeit less patiently. "He was a boy, who was raised to hate, and to despise. Somehow, he had nothing but disgust for anyone who was different to him, harboured somewhere inside of him. How could anything like that happen?"

"Because it's allowed," Elle shrugged, as if she were looking for an answer. "Governments don't mention it, the media don't care. Through their fascist coverage – it is, in a way, allowed. No more, though. You proved that, Doctor. Not a bad day's work."

"Not a bad hundred-years' work," the Doctor continued to stare, thoughtfully out the window. Elle looked at him in confusion, with no idea what on Earth the man was talking about. Though he had proved himself to be most useful, he was, also, an utter nightmare to deal with.

Lizzie knew what she meant.

She saw Iris sneakily messing up Elle's perfect regiment of pens.

* * *

"Well, the Bug sounds like a jolly lovely chap," Cioné muttered sarcastically over her mug of tea, before wrapping her shawl further around her. It was cold that night, and yet, there was a mutual warmth shared by all four of them – Cioné, the Doctor, Iris and Lizzie. Following their debrief from Elle, the Doctor had quickly picked up his wife, and taken them to the Plains of Everdreams, a huge planet that was, for as far as the eye could see, rolling pastures, over and over. It was one of the most serene spots in all the universe, as it was just grass, with the odd tree dotted around.

That night, they sat beneath a great willow tree. A gingham cloth had been spread out by the base, upon which the four of them sat, along with the Doctor's satchel and a great flask of tea. K9 was with them, and the Doctor leaned back against his faithful hound. Also, on the far corner, providing their only illumination, was a glass jar. It gave a strange, unrecognisable light, because flickering around inside was the Glowfly, that somehow shone a brand-new colour.  
The impossible, right in front of them. A living-dream.

"Right," Iris declared, making a deliberate point of her sips from a can of _Coca Cola_. "This is getting beyond a joke now. The tea drinking, it needs to stop. People who look at this family but just be really bored of it."

The Doctor gazed out at the fields ahead of them, a philosophical look leaping in his eye. "Perhaps we resort to it because it's the only thing we know truly how to do. Drink tea."

"Be more… creative," Iris scowled, feeling the cold liquid sip down her throat. She felt pleased, though, even if it was a stupidly small thing to be pleased about. That she was claiming her identity.

It was also notable that because of the lack of development on the Plains of Everdreams, the sky above their heads was completely free of clouds and of light pollution, which Lizzie often thought was a ridiculous notion, calling it light pollution – how could light ever pollute? However, Iris had lectured her on the science of it all, and although Lizzie had still decided it needed another name, she understood.

"Come on then, Iris," the Doctor stood up, holding out a hand, as if he were offering to dance with his daughter. "Show us _you_."

Iris stared at him blankly. "What?"

"The stars. Show us."

Iris grumbled. "Do I have to?"

"Yes," the Doctor ordered, gesturing out into the night.

"This is _exactly_ what I didn't want…"

Cioné decided she was going to have to stage an intervention to prevent this awkward confrontation from continuing, so she stood. "K9," Cioné patted the metal dog on its head. "Look after Gerald, will you?"

"Yes Mistress!" K9 nodded with robotic obedience.

"Who's Gerald?" the Doctor inquired.

"The Glowfly."

It took a few seconds to register – that Cioné had named a Glowfly that shone a brand-new colour Gerald. "You called that beautiful creature _Gerald_?"

Cioné raised her arms in defence as she strode over to join her husband. "It's a lovely name!"

"For my second-cousin twice removed, maybe…"

"Oh yes," Cioné bickered back. "I forgot about The Gerald, ravisher of the universe and destroyer of worlds."

It was not long before Iris reluctantly agreed, and followed her parents.

Lizzie hung back at first, until Iris turned. "Lizzie, please come, I think I'll force a regeneration on otherwise." She reached a hand down to her, and Lizzie grasped it, and together, they walked out far from beneath the cover of the trees.

As the four of them walked further and further out, they saw the sky unfurl around them. And because there was no cloud layer, and because there was no light pollution, the sky above them was a city of stars. It was bright and whizzing and a chromatic explosion all across the huge black screen of the night. The sky wasn't just black, it was flickered with streaks of dark blue, and the little orange and gold remnants of the sunset lightly brushed over the top. The moon smiled over them – a full moon, not worried about hiding itself, and in its openness, it bathed the surface of the world in a silvery hue.

And the stars themselves – some of them remained static, while some of them burst across the horizon as if they were just happy to be alive, while those that remained unmoving watched contentedly on. Violet, magenta, azures, deep-sea green and bright neon lime. Dashing bolts of crimson dancing with passion and love, flashes of pink rushing, and white flames of gas raging in their purity, as if they were admitting to who they truly were.

And against it all, the four of them on the skin of this tiny planet, microscopic in comparison to the sprawling infinity of the universe above their heads. A universe that could be so cruel and bitter, but at the same time, was so beautiful and alive. As the four of them gazed above them in those moments, they forgot about that chilling aspect, because who knew when it would bite – instead, they treasured that moment of beauty and living, they celebrated it, and united in their love of the people and the skies above their heads, the four of them were themselves – the people they _wanted_ be.

And at the same time, all of them were together.

* * *

Lizzie and Cioné had gone into the TARDIS, Lizzie because she decided the two of them probably needed some space, and Cioné because she suddenly remembered she'd left the bath running, parked not far from their willow tree, leaving just the Doctor and Iris outside under the stars. The Doctor shut the doors, and Iris leaned melancholily back against them.

"Where next?" the Doctor asked his daughter, as he looked out at the fields, at the stars ahead of them.

Iris was cycling through all the galaxies in her eyesight, identifying each of them in her head. It had become a comfort mechanism over the years, if ever she required one.

"Dad."

"Yes?"

There was no other way to tell him, than to stay true to herself, and not mince her words.

"I'm not coming with you."

She'd made Lizzie laugh through her bluntness once. Children always said exactly what they thought, and Iris had seemingly never changed. The Doctor felt like an idiot then, however, for being so expectant, and just thinking Iris would decide to fly away with them. Because of his idiocy he didn't look at her, but he just stared, forwards. She could tell he was sad, though. Was it some kind of… familial telepathy? She'd heard stories of relatives who could just… know things, about their loved ones, no matter how far away they were.

"As I said earlier," she explained. "I want to be me. I'm gonna go with Mum, go back to the Front, finish studying –"

"And you can be you. You don't have to run away from me to be someone else, you know."

"I know. And one day, I'll travel with you. We'll go see loads of cool places," and Iris meant it. But for now, those first steps into the big wide universe had to be her own.

"So… what are you going to do?"

With a perfectly deadpan look upon her face, she said, "I've got to study."

They stared forwards, in silence, just for a few seconds. Both of them were wondering what was going on inside the other's head. Perhaps there was no such thing as familial telepathy.

However, Iris' theories were reaffirmed when they both broke down into fits of laughter in unison.

"I'll never forget you said that," the Doctor's daughter, wanting to study. Had he come back to the right dimension.

"Good," Iris stated, a little bit awkwardly, because she didn't really know how to say why she would only travel with him later on. All she knew was that the next few years of her life had to be hers, and she would have to brave them. Of course he could support her, of course her Mum and Lizzie could support her too.

But now it was time to grow up.

But… you get me, yeah?"

The Doctor turned to look at her, and with complete and utter understanding, he said, "Of course I do. Yes – no need to worry."

And he did – because he had stood where she had stood. As he looked at her then in the starlight, a look of unbridled confidence as well as slight trepidation in her face, he realised that perhaps they were more similar than either of them had ever realised.

"Go and see some cool stuff. And look after my sis, hey?" Iris glanced around at the TARDIS. "She needs it, even if she doesn't admit it."

Lizzie had let her in – not for long, but she had. Iris had seen inside her mind, and she hoped more than anything else that Lizzie would take care of herself.

The Doctor nodded, not just determined to do right by his daughter, but also by his best friend. And then he realised.

"You've said exactly the same thing to her."

Iris kicked her trainers at the ground sheepishly, because yes, she had. But two of her most precious people in her life – what should the Doctor have expected?  
"You and Mum," the Doctor still felt as if he couldn't properly leave them and keep his mind at rest.

Iris sighed, and however mocking her answer, it managed to reassure him. "She'll be glad that she doesn't have to put up with you crying every time there's a spider in the TARDIS."

Iris turned to face her Dad, and although hugging was probably not her thing, they smiled at each other, and she walked into his arms. There was so much to say, but it was much more communicable through an action, and not through some boring sentimental words. Two of them not so different, but also their own selves – but also a family – together as one.

The two of them stepped into the TARDIS.

 _Here's to more days like that._

* * *

It was the evening.

Or, however the evening could be described on the TARDIS. For their simulated sleep cycles, it was the evening.

Lizzie had always been one for bedtime reading. It usually felt appropriate to escape into some other world at the end of the day. She'd take herself off to the TARDIS library where she would usually end up spending the whole night slumped over a book or scribbling out some paragraphs of prose that just sprung to her. There was something amazing about libraries anyway – collections of lives, all in paper form, and all pressed together, between two other pieces of leather or paper or card or whatever. Books were memories. Except, they weren't dead memories – they were living memories.

Her armchair was an old one, and battered, with a miscellany of cushions from all over the place. There was an antique bedside table next to the chair, where a lamp stood, illuminating her and the pages in a burned, orange glow. In a strange way, that glow brought the books to life. The only other light in the great library came from the glass ceiling – similarly to the console room, the TARDIS' library had an observatory.

And there was nothing more comforting than reading by lamplight, and by starlight.

The library was so big, sprawling on and on and on. So many shelves, and so many books. If one lived a life as long as the Doctor's, it would make sense that you would end up with such a library in your possession. There were times when she would just randomly walk through the maze of novels, her fingers trailing their dusty spines, just enjoying the touch of the books. And often, she would find herself stood on the balcony, looking down at the cathedral-sized space, with the blanket of stars covering the night sky, visible through the glass.

That was when she wanted to feel the life in the universe – because one could see everything then. Everything that had ever happened, through the books, and everything that could be discovered, through the stars.

Her armchair, though, was quietly tucked away in one corner, by an arched window in the wall, so she could see the night from there, as well. Lizzie sat there now, curled up in the old armchair, with the orange lamp switched on, bringing light and life to her and the pages. The starlight shone as well, and the two came together to bring some… truly beautiful illumination.

She looked up, to see the Doctor stood by one of the bookshelves, watching her.

"We never found out why," she said. She sounded a bit awkward, but to be fair, he was just randomly watching her. "Sorry – I mean, why the Memory Graveyard was linked to my den."

"No," the Doctor stepped away from the shadows, and walked over towards her. The starlight shone on him, bringing him closer to her. "I don't know why. Maybe we'll never find out."

Lizzie looked at him, and then out the huge arched window. _Unless we do_ , she thought. Perhaps it wasn't all over yet. Perhaps there was more to be discovered.  
Bad memories were never lost, really. Only kept quiet.

She didn't say that to him, though, because she suspected that he already knew it.

There was something amazing, as the two of them were there, in the library, in that bigger-on-the-inside box, amongst the huge, great, church-esque beams, with the mass of scuffed old wooden bookshelves, with battered old tomes and crumbled pieces of paper, all containing impossible and improbable stories and lives and fairytales, with the only other company being that of the stars through the window.

"I can see why you like it down here so much," the Doctor placed a hand on the glass.

"Yeah. It's… yeah, it's beautiful."

Lizzie didn't mention Iris – the Doctor had only just dropped her off back home, and he seemed pretty sad.

"All of these books, Lizzie," the Doctor gestured around him. "We could see any of the stories, we could walk in those pages. We could see those that were never written, and we could write new ones. All them," he walked over to her, and she couldn't help but smile up at him, as he smiled down at her. "This library, Lizzie, is like the universe. With so many lives and so many people, and with every single one being so different but so beautiful. And just like you get to walk through this library, we get to walk through the universe," he turned to look out of the window again. "That won't ever stop being amazing, Elizabeth Darwin."

"No," Lizzie said. "No, it won't."

He said they could write new stories. She couldn't stop thinking about that.

Maybe they already were.

"Thank you, Doctor."

"What for?"

"For the library."

Lizzie placed her bookmark in the book, and closed it, placing it on the bedside table. She walked past him, and smiled, and then vanished, into a galaxy of shelves.

The Doctor walked over to the table, to see what she was reading. _The Good-Dream Girl_. He'd seen her with it several times – it was the first thing she'd picked up from her flat when they'd gone back to get some things. On the inside cover, written in ink, were the words,

 _To Lizzie. Don't stop dreaming._

He clasped it in his hands, feeling the weight of it, of the pages so frequently turned by Elizabeth Darwin.

Casually, he read the blurb, and looked around, and then he saw it.

And he couldn't help but walk towards it.

For on the nearest shelf, there was a book, and he felt suddenly drawn to it. He wasn't sure why, there was just something familiar about it.

That's when he realised.

The Doctor looked down at the book he was holding in his hands, and then back at the book on the shelf, and saw that the two were identical.

He took the book off the shelf, and saw that not only were they the same book, they were _exactly_ the same book. With exactly the same scuffmarks, and exactly the same tears and stains in the pages, and with exactly the same smell.

The Doctor had an exact copy of one of Lizzie's books.

Exact, barring the enscription on the inside cover.

And he had no idea why.

There was something about her – something strange about the life of Lizzie Darwin. He'd thought it before, with the thriving of dimensional energy around a place she'd spent so much time in her childhood. He'd had his suspicions confirmed when somehow, the Memory Graveyard had been connected to the same place. Now he saw the twin books, he knew that there was something.

He wasn't sure what. Lizzie wasn't sure what.

But there was.

The Doctor walked over to orange lamp, and he turned it off. The flick of the switch was audible, as it echoed in the silence of the library.

The Doctor walked away from the armchair, and the only light was that of the stars.


	10. 508 The Karaoke Killer

" _Meeting you, with a view to a kill."_

Mickey 'Mad' Michelson had good reason to celebrate. He was stumbling, woozily, down bridge _B-NaNa-7-a-M-A_ , one of the many corridors and walkways located on the deck. The mojitos had made him pleasantly lightheaded, and as he plodded along he gazed in awe along the walls, at the great platinum circles mounted on the walls behind thick, reinforced glass.

 _"Face to face in secret places feel the chill."_

Once, that glass had seemed almost impenetrable. Now, as he counted drunken twones and thrours and fixes and fevans in his mind, it felt almost alien to comprehend that after the most recent release from his best, hit artist, _T!881es the all-singing, all-dancing robocat_ , that he was currently rivalling sales equal to the sum total of every single platinum record released during the 1980s. One of the many drawbacks in not being able to roll out universally.

Michelson was on air, and it felt as if he was floating celestially over the technicolour linoleum tiled flooring, as if his euphoria were creating a gap, a few solid inches of sheer, unadulterated happiness, between his bright pink jelly shoes and the ground. He stretched out his arms, the spandex refusing to ride up, it too held in the beautiful moment. He was an explosion of rainbows and groove and glitter and glitz, and he did not believe this tidal wave of ecstatic synthesised piano melodies and percussion rhythms would end any time soon. His song of synth was an exquisite harmony, reaching out to billions and billions and billions.

 _"Nightfall covers me."_

Only then did Michelson catch a glimpse of a moving shadow in the vivid vibrancy of the hall of records. He felt his jelly shoes gently pad along the ground, still with the bounce and spring of a former dancer, the jelly squeaking against the spacey, rubbery floor.

He was approaching the end of the corridor of records, now. He caught a glimpse of the lights reflected in the glass cases, and his head darted from side to side. He wiped the alcoholic perspiration off his brow, and plodded onwards. Eventually, he cupped his hand over the door switch, and it slid open in front of him.

 **Entering observation deck.**

The door opened, revealing the huge, reinforced glass window, and the kaleidoscopic wallpaper, of neon pinks and turquoises and lime greens. Michelson tentatively snuck down towards the window – he felt as if someone were watching him, though he couldn't see who. The observation deck displayed some nebula he didn't recognise. It was stunning – the huge swirling orb of colour in the blackness. The announcement voice thing was still talking, but he wasn't paying attention – his eyes were glued to the expanse of nothing ahead.

Michelson tapped his foot. He was a natural foot-tapper. Music ran through him, always, and he was always moving to some beat, even if there was nothing there. When he focused, he realised it was the beat of his heart.

 **Emergency programme DUrANzz – DurUAnZ activated. Extracting observation deck.  
**  
Music was such a human thing – so much so, everyone had their own, internal rhythm, that kept life in a permanent –

 _What?  
_  
Michelson flung himself over to the door, and screamed. After his dreams of a singing career had been shot down, he'd gone into managing. Now, as his throaty cries rang in the garish hall, he could understand why. Nothing was good about the screams coming from his lungs. The metal slab would not wedge and he thrashed at it, tearing at it over and over with his hands, until he must've broken at least half the bones in his fingers and wrist through the incessant thumping. In the midst of the bloodcurdling screams there were a few words, but he couldn't hear them – all he could hear was the 77-metres-thick observation glass cracking behind him, as if it were weaker than the useless crap they'd used in the Adele-bot's most recent video.

Eventually, the hoarse screams and mangled words were replaced by the sound of winds gusting and Michelson's neck being wrung by the vacuum of space.

His corpse somersaulted gleefully into the nebula.

 _But you know, the plans I'm making  
_  
 _Still oversee  
_  
 _Could it be the whole earth opening wide  
_  
 _A sacred why, a mystery gaping inside  
_  
 _The weekends why, until we_

 **THE EIGHTH DOCTOR ADVENTURES**

 **SERIES 5 - EPISODE 8**

 **THE KARAOKE KILLER**

 **WRITTEN BY ED GOUNDREY-SMITH**

"Everyone likes music," the Doctor strode to the doors of the TARDIS, and he swung them open. He was dressed in his usual attire, while Lizzie donned a pair of baggy, fluorescent trousers, and a top patterned with a series of geometric shapes. Dress for your favourite era of music, he'd said. And so, there she was, looking like someone who'd walked straight out of the 1980s. "And that's no different in the 52nd century."

The TARDIS was in a strange, glass chamber – the size of a large theatre, perhaps. And it seemed to be the centre of a spaceship – through the great glass windows Lizzie looked up, and not only could she see the stars whizzing and dancing above her head, Lizzie could see the great, metal hulk of the ship, towering far above her head. Even when she craned her neck, she couldn't see the top – and when she looked below her, Lizzie couldn't see the bottom either. It was a colossal beast, floating through galaxies and star-systems – and it seemed to be carrying so many different people.

In the glass lobby area, hundreds of people milled around, all of them dressed quite ridiculously – and it was only then that Lizzie realised. All of them seemed to have walked out a specific era of history. No – not just history. _Musical_ history.

"The iCruiser," the Doctor waved around him, at the multitudes of nutty people, whom Lizzie was delighted to be in the company of. Everybody was looking ridiculous, and she seemed to settle into that quite well. The Doctor quickly guided her through the crowds. "Musicians, fanatics, critics, anybody who loves music, flocks to this ship. It's a cruise-liner – one where everybody loves music."

They stepped into a lift, and quickly the doors shut behind them. As it glided up through the belly of the ship, Lizzie could see around her – not only at the galaxies outside, but she glanced through into the various different floors. And as they went, the Doctor began to explain.

"The lower basement – the mosh pit. Believe me, I've met the Mosh, huge teeth. Then you've got grime, and so on, and so on. Electro, country, folk, and, I know you're not one for parties, but I'm sure you'll make an exception, Lizzie Darwin, for floor 80. 80s pop."

And then, the doors of the lift opened, and revealed a strange world.

If Lizzie weren't acutely aware of the fact she was walking on a spaceship, she would dare to wonder whether this was actually the 1980s – for it seemed like that decade had been perfectly replicated on the spaceship. Ahead of her, was an almighty hall, stretching on and on, with a dance floor, and bars, and bursting neon lights, and through the speakers above, _Together in Electric Dreams_ played at top volume, so loudly it seemed to make Lizzie's very insides want to dance along to those piercing tunes. The floor, a chequered pattern of all sorts of garish yellows and greens and pinks, and neon lights burst and flickered around.

There were hundreds of people, all in mini-skirts and Lycra and Spandex and with headbands, and giant hair, and reebok trainers, and scrunchies, and shoulder-pads, some of them were drinking at the bars, some of them were dancing, as if they were living purely for the moment. Everyone looked happy, everyone looked as if they were having the time of their lives. Several inflatable palm trees were balanced up beside the main bar, behind which a squid-like alien styling a perm and donning an animal-print blouse was serving drinks

"You should dance," the Doctor suggested, not even as a joke.

"Very funny," Lizzie laughed, fully believing that it was a joke, as she gravitated towards one of the Rubix-cube tables in the corner of the club. She gazed around her, all the people living so marvellously and wonderfully, looking as if they were having oodles of fun, and she wanted to have such fun as well. But quickly, she gravitated to her usual position of the corner of the room, where she could admire them all, when she could muse on how wonderful life was, without needing to live it. Before long, the Doctor brought some drinks over, and they sat and watched the people singing terribly along to the music.

"Thank you for bringing me here," Lizzie gave the Doctor an honest smile.

"Well… we've not done much together for a while, I thought it would be fun."

"It is. Definitely. Thank you."

They clinked their glasses, and sat back. The Doctor looked content, and Lizzie admired him, for coming so far. Even when Cioné and Iris weren't with them, the Doctor was happy. It was as if he _always_ had his family around him, and he was enjoying life. A very different person, to the one she'd found on her street corner. Often there were moments, when she would look over at him, and she would want to want to be like that. Would want to sit back, happily, and feel content, as if she were enjoying life. But that was a distant thought… because she still felt distant, she still felt… trapped. Even after seeing so much, there was something always nagging her, always keeping her back.

"This place, it's very advanced," the Doctor mused. "A great… musical database, it's all this big computer programme that runs the whole ship, and it's clever – it self-tailors all the playlists to each floor. And then the speakers, they play so loudly they have to be forged in the mountains of Dragon's Sun, this funny old world off somewhere. And this place, it goes so far, they've got these massive exo-tonic shields protecting us whenever we go past suns and stars just a little bit too bright…"

He spoke so… happily. Every word was full of enthusiasm, a thirst for living. She could listen to him talk like that all day, his great passion for existence almost irresistible.

"You're a… a wonderful person," she smiled.

"You would always ask, wouldn't you?"

The question perhaps seemed out of the blue, but as the Doctor watched Lizzie, she seemed so sad. Almost distant.

"Yes," Lizzie lied, although she did it well, as the Doctor didn't bat an eyelid. She would want nothing more than to ask for help, she knew she probably should've done so ages ago. But she just… couldn't bring herself to do it. She was too scared, perhaps.

"Seriously, Lizzie. I think there are people who… refuse to help. Who think everyone has to just… do it on their own. And I worry that people like that can… put people who need help off asking for it."

Perhaps he was right… although Lizzie didn't believe that was the reason for her reluctance.

"How's Iris?" she changed the subject.

The Doctor nodded slowly. "Yes, she's doing wonderfully. She was getting all into politics the other day. Musing over this… Evangeline Cullengate woman."

"I've heard about her." Lizzie had heard the name crop up a few times. Prime Minister of the Empire. Seemingly quite controversial, and of the policies Lizzie had heard, she didn't like the sound of her much.

"I've had my eye on her…"

But the Doctor's voice was drifting, and his eyes were wandering… and he'd caught sight of someone, in an old battered trench coat, holding up a warrant card to a group of people who seemed like guards.

"You saw that?" the Doctor asked, his distraction evident.

"Yes…"

"I think someone might need our help."

* * *

"Everyone, stand away from the bed," the Doctor ordered, as soon as he strode into the room. They'd followed the detective, to whatever the scene of the crime was – and this was where they'd been going. The luxury suites, on Floor 80's accommodation zone. Clearly the Doctor oozed self-confidence because all the guards stepped away from the bed instantly, bar the trench coat man. Lizzie followed the Doctor's swift pace, but came to an abrupt halt as she saw the mangled crispy corpse lying on the four-poster-bed, singeing the pristine white sheets with a mucky burgundy gunk.

"And who the hell are you?" the man in the trench coat turned and squared up to the Doctor.

"I'm the Doctor. And believe me, I can help."

"Oh? You can help more than five years of training, can you? Piss off out of my crime scene."

The Doctor stopped, startled and backed down, looking awkwardly as the crowds of guards watched him pathetically.

The suite was still perfect in its cleanliness, Lizzie observed, if it were not for the body. In fact, it was exquisite, a master suite with an oak, Tudor-esque four poster, and a screen opposite that would not look out of place in a cinema. The lamps either side of the bed were on, bathing the chamber in a warm, orange glow, which was futile since the lights of the chamber had been switched on as well and emitted a piercing white light. The white floorboards were peculiar in that unlike the rest of the ship, whose floorboards did not creak through their artificiality, they gave a delightfully rustic moan.

"You're a detective?" the Doctor asked, backing down so he didn't look too stupid.

"Yeah. Oh, and who's this?" the detective pointed to Lizzie, who waved awkwardly and wished she could work out how not to stand awkwardly in the corners of rooms. "Why don't we let the whole bloody ship come and rubberneck?"

"What's your name, detective?"

"DI Ronnie Wolfe. Now, look, go away."

"I'm not going anywhere until we find out what's going on. The Doctor. This is what I do."

"Yeah? Same, funnily enough…"

There was an awkward silence between them all. "So has he been electrocuted or something?" Lizzie asked, hoping that it would shut them up.

"What makes you think that?" Wolfe asked, pulling a pair of latex gloves over his hands and poking at the corpse.

"I mean… it smells like it's burning," Lizzie muttered and then shut up.

"She's right, it's electrocution," the Doctor said.

"Oh, for –…"

"The burning is too exact to account for him being set on fire –"

"– give me strength–"

"– guards," the Doctor turned to them. "I need a full background check on this man, everything about him, and patch CCTV, we want to know _everything_ about his last movements."

"Sir," the guards acknowledged, leaving the room, leaving just the Doctor, Lizzie, and DI Ronnie Wolfe. And the body.

"Christ on a space cruiser, who gave you the authority to swan in here like that?" Ronnie spluttered.

"Who gave _you_ the authority?"

"… my boss, after the first five murders. See? Asking the wrong questions. Never bothered to inquire if there were more murders…," Wolfe smiled smugly like a petulant child proven right.

"You're from the Empire?"

"Yeah?"

"Is it still Goodwin in charge? Always scared me witless, that one…"

"Oh, yep, still running the ship. Still as terrifying as ever."

"Better get results then. Come on!"

* * *

The operations bridge of Floor 80 (Lizzie had learned that because the ship was so large, as well as having a bridge, each individual deck had its own bridge) was lavishly decorated, almost more like some royal chamber than a place of work. The carpet was blood-red, and an ancient grandfather clock stood ticking in the corner of the room. There was a great window looking out into space, and the controls and computers were plated in gold.

On an antiquely carved oak table in the centre of the room, a menagerie of papers were scattered everywhere, and a great CID-esque pinboard was balanced above some of the ship's instruments. Already Lizzie wanted to tidy the place up.

"The first murder happened two weeks ago," Ronnie showed them a picture of a man with perfectly trimmed facial hair dyed a multitude of bright colours. "Dex Lyryi, found in a sealed airlock. With the air removed."

Lizzie grimaced. What a horrendous way to go.

"Crystal Alphaus," Ronnie held up a photo of a humanoid with a crystalline body structure. "Hypoxia, which is oxygen deficiency. And vomit. Everywhere."

"And finally," Ronnie shuffled through the mass of papers. "Blimey, this is a shocker. Barbara Blue," Ronnie pointed to a monochrome picture of a happy, dancing young woman. "She was found with no limbs and her entire body had been mauled. There was a tiger found nearby."

"And who was the victim on the bed?"

"Aye aye, not a nice way to talk about my husband," Ronnie laughed. The Doctor sighed, and Lizzie, as immature as it was, rather enjoyed watching Ronnie Wolfe irritate the Doctor. "His name was Xevr Azalea. He's a musician."

 _Any relation to Iggy?_ Lizzie wondered (although her heart lay with 80s music, she knew all the lyrics to _Fancy_ ).

"How can we be sure they're connected?" the Doctor asked, looking at the pinboard. Ronnie looked bemused, even though it was probably the most obvious question the Doctor could've asked.

"Well, we don't –"

"Exactly," the Doctor said. "You just assumed…"

"Well, it's a bit bloody unlikely four people are murdered in elaborate circumstances on one floor of one spaceship by coincidence," Ronnie raised an eyebrow.

"Also, well, I'm thinking the same, basically," Lizzie piped up, and the Doctor actually turned to listen to her, unlike Ronnie. "Well, surely the fact they've been murdered under these circumstances is enough connection in itself. Because if you're gonna kill someone in such an elaborate way, and three other people die in similarly elaborate ways, it makes sense it's the same person."

The Doctor nodded slowly.

"Someone who kills as a game, probably," Lizzie continued. "I mean, why go to such lengths to kill someone?"

"You're quite good at this," the Doctor looked at her, as if he was surprised. That sort of look always got on Lizzie's wick, that look that she received when she dared to breach the expectations placed on her.

"Yeah… I like crime dramas, haha…"

Insomnia had its benefits.

"So, we've got a murderer," the Doctor listed aloud. "Killing for fun in the most audacious ways possible. Interesting. This is my cup of tea."

"Right," Ronnie waded in in the clumsiest way that was possible for one to verbally stumble into a conversation. "You're both crapping annoying, for the love of god. Who actually are you?"

"I'm the Doctor, this is Lizzie Darwin. We're straight out of a crime drama."

"I've just ran a check on you both, and you ain't even on board!"

"We're stowaways," the Doctor offered, in the hope that it would quieten the man down.

"I don't give a damn whether you're the bloody Queen –"

"There's _still_ a Queen?" Lizzie gawked, partly to stop them both from arguing.

"An Empress," Ronnie admitted.

"This one is interesting," the Doctor turned to the crystalline person, fittingly called Crystal. "With every other victim, we know how they were murdered, with Crystal, we've only got a precise cause of death. Hypoxia can be caused by all sorts. The vomit is intriguing…"

Lizzie grimaced. _Casualty_ always gave her a strange interest in medicine but looking back she wasn't so sure.

"Where was the body found, Ronnie?"

"The cooling decks."

The Doctor faced turned, and when Lizzie saw him, he was pale. "I think he was spun to death."

Ronnie hesitated, and then repeated the Doctor's words, sarcasm dripping from his voice. " _Spun_ to death?"

"Oh yes," the Doctor replied, not a hint of irony in his voice.

" _Spun_."

"I'm not making this up, Detective."

"But _spun to death_."

Lizzie sighed, determined to shut them both up from this seemingly eternal argument. Men arguing was just… _no_.

"What makes you think that?" she asked the Doctor, she said, sounding much calmer than she actually was.

"There are massive fans on the cooling decks," the Doctor murmured, turning to a computer and tapping away at the keyboard. "And I was right…"

"Oh yeah?" Ronnie swaggered over to him. The Doctor pointed smugly at the screen.

"Yes. _There_ – the fans were powered down three hours before Crystal's body was found. The fans were stopped, he was strapped on, and the fans were repowered. It's the same principle as altitude sickness. The g-force, a lack of oxygen, leads to hypoxia."

Ronnie jabbered away sheepishly, and the Doctor, irritatingly, put a finger to his lips. That made Ronnie even more annoyed, but all he could do was point furiously at the Doctor.

" _You_ are a pompous brat with your head up your own –"

"Yes, thank you," the Doctor ignored him. "But I think you'll find…"

While the two men were arguing, they had neglected to notice the red telephone in the corner of the room, which had been ringing for the past 10 seconds or so. Lizzie glanced over it, her resting bitch face becoming twice bitchier than usual as the two men acted like primary school children. Eventually, she realised she was going to have to answer it, and ignoring the tsunami of anxiety that ploughed into her at the sight of a ringing phone, she answered it.

"Hello?"

"I'm a working-class kid, you know," Wolfe said. "I worked bloody hard to get to where I am, and I won't have you put me down."

"Oh, don't mind me," the Doctor retorted, ramping up the enunciation of his vowels to make himself seem even posher than usual. "It isn't like I've been the one to actually make some progress in this case so far –"

"I'm not a moron, y'know!"

"Is that so?"

"Right!" Lizzie slammed the phone down, and they both shut up. Lizzie took a deep breath. "For god's sake. Doctor, shut up with the entitlement, I'm sick of it. Ronnie, just be nice to him, I know he's an arse but he's alright sometimes."

The Doctor and Ronnie looked at each other, eyes for each dripping with mutual revulsion. Then they looked at Lizzie, whose resting bitch face was now amplified by at least three times.

"Fine," Ronnie spat.

"Okay," the Doctor kicked his feet like a sullen child. _800 and something going on 4._

Lizzie hoped they wouldn't fight each other to get out of the room when she delivered the next bit of news, and that her albeit dodgy attempts at mediating weren't useless. "There's been another murder."

The Doctor grabbed his jacket and threw it on himself, striding out of the room. Ronnie did the same, grabbing his trench coat.

Ronnie stopped in the doorway. "He doesn't even know where he's going!"

Lizzie stepped out into the corridor with him. "That's more of a metaphor for his entire life than you'll ever understand."

* * *

After the Doctor had, rather idiotically, walked out of the room without knowing where he was going, he seemed to have mellowed slightly, and Lizzie was suitably reassured that her words had got through to him.

They were in Floor 80's sick bay (each deck was apparently so huge they maintained their own set of facilities), and ahead of them, was a door, like that of a classic bank vault, with a metal wheel on the front. It opened into a vault-like container, which was constructed of metal and glass, allowing the doctors and nurses monitoring the inhabitant to easily observe them.

It was a decompression chamber, and the most recent patient had vanished.

"How do we know he didn't just leave the chamber?" the Doctor looked at the chamber sceptically, as a nurse twisted the great metal wheel, and opened the circular door, which led into an airlock-like porch area. The Doctor, Lizzie and Ronnie joined the nurse, and the outside door was shut, before the inside door hissed open.

 _"Oh! Let's go!"_

An old Earth song played quietly in the background.

"The chamber is shielded against teleport signals and automatically intercepts them," the nurse explained. "After all, sudden teleportation alters pressure, which would be deadly with technology such as this. Our patients tend to be the maintenance crew, who have made repairs on the outer shell of the ship, but are still affected by the pressure."

 _"Steve walks warily down the street,_

 _With the brim pulled way down low_

 _Ain't no sound but the sound his feet,_

 _Machine guns ready to go."_

"There's precautions against that, y'know," Ronnie warned.

"We know," the nurse got rather cagey, before turning to leave.

"Oi," Ronnie called over. The nurse looked at him, and Ronnie made dagger signs with his fingers. The nurse scuttled away, shutting them in the decompression chamber. "Bloody capitalism. Don't want a lawsuit against not taking lawful protections so they have their own bleedin' decompression chamber to cover up any medical bills."

 _Some things never change_ , Lizzie mused, as the Doctor wandered around aimlessly, his tongue sticking out, an act which made him look strangely like a cocker spaniel. Ronnie glanced over at him, trying to hold in his laughter.

He couldn't, and set out an almost high-pitched squeal, before falling against the wall at the back of the chamber. That only made him laugh harder, and soon Lizzie, much to the Doctor's dismay, was giggling as well.

"You're both ridiculous."

"I'm sorry," Ronnie howled away to himself. He was laughing. He was ugly laughing. Lizzie creased, sitting down on the bed in the chamber. It was one of those situations where the act of laughing was almost as funny as the original funny thing.

 _"Are you ready, hey, are you ready for this?_

 _Are you hanging on the edge of your seat?_

 _Out of the doorway the bullets rip_

 _To the sound of the beat."_

The Doctor, by now, had his tongue back in his mouth, and a grim look upon his face. "I think I know how our victim died," he murmured.

"Oh yeah?" Ronnie asked, between fits of laughter.

"You're breathing them in."

"Jesus with a crucifix up his arse," Ronnie lurched up. "What do you mean I'm breathing them in?!"

Lizzie was silent, instantly, and tried not to breath, and then realised that was stupid, and so breathed again, even though the physical act of breathing made her feel almost sick.

"Oh…," Ronnie looked at the structure surrounding them. "I get you…"

"It's a ruse," the Doctor ran a finger down one of the metal blocks of the chamber walls. Black soot came away with it. "Body vanishes in decompression chamber. Obvious answer to someone who doesn't know science, the pressure in the chamber was increased so extortionately that the body exploded. But no…"

Ronnie had done the same as the Doctor, examining the soot on his fingers. "This was burned."

"Burned at extortionately high temperatures too," the Doctor observed, sounding almost impressed.

Lizzie hoped they would explain. GCSE Science didn't really cover killing people in decompression chambers. "Sorry, but –"

"Someone pulsed a huge level of energy through here. I should think about 3 gigajoules. Enough to vaporise an entire human body. And it did… turned him into dust…"

Lizzie, while the Doctor was spouting some technobabble she didn't really understand, lost focus, and her gaze shifted to a panel on the wall, like an iPod, perhaps. One of the panels she'd seen in private rooms all over the station. And it was still playing.

 _"Another one bites the dust._

 _Another one bites the dust._

 _And another one gone, and another one gone."_

She also couldn't help but notice, that whoever had last listened to the music (whom she suspected was most likely the now-vaporised patient) had rather a love for the song, as it was on loop.

 _It was on loop…_

"It's the music," Lizzie murmured, and an awkward silence followed as the Doctor and Ronnie stared at her.

Ronnie was, as expected, the first to declare how stupid she was. "Yer what?"

"Lizzie," the Doctor began, but she took a deep breath and continued to talk over him.

"Obviously it's not the music doing the killing," she said. "But someone is tuning their murders to the songs. Can you access a history of all the songs played throughout the private iPods on Floor 80?"

Ronnie looked at the floor and at Lizzie. "Maybe I was, y'know, too quick to judge."

She glared at him, awaiting her answer.

"Yes. I'm on it."

The nurse allowed the three of them out of the decompression chamber, and Ronnie dashed straight over to a computer.

Lizzie turned to the Doctor. "Do you actually want me doing this? I'm not, like, stealing your thunder or anything?"

The Doctor was quick to put an end to her misgivings. "No, no, of course not."

"Because I don't want to be, like, second fiddle to your ego."

"You won't, don't worry."

"Here we go!" Ronnie called over, interrupting them. "Complete history."

Lizzie wanted to see if she could guess, however. "Let me see… Dexter, trapped in an airlock… _Every Breath You Take_?"

Ronnie gave Lizzie an impressed glance. "Correct…"

"Crystal Alphaus… tied to a propellor and spun… it's got to be _You Spin Me Round_."

"Again… yeah," Ronnie nodded.

"And finally…. Ooh."

The Doctor peered over Ronnie's shoulder. "It's an obvious one," he confirmed.

"Hmm…"

"Think Rocky."

"Oh! _Eye of the Tiger_!"

"And last but not least…"

"Xevr Azalea, found electrocuted in their bed. Was listening to…," and the Doctor and Lizzie spoke both in unison, " _Together in Electric Dreams_!"

"100%!" Ronnie grinned.

The Doctor turned to the three of them, who all seemed quite pleased with themselves. "Right, team. Passenger records - we need to check them out, see if we can identify any patterns and work out who's next."

The Doctor and Ronnie, who looked quite a pair in their flowing jackets, turned to the leave the sick bay.

Lizzie, however, hesitated.

"Actually - Doctor, can I go and call Maggie? I promised I would."

"Of course!" the Doctor looked embarrassed, and there was a brief spell of awkwardness between them.

"You go and… find your murderer or whatever, I'll catch up with you later."

"Great! Okay, well, tell Maggie I say hi."

"I think she'll be the one wanting to say hi to you…"

* * *

"I reckon our Karen's got herself a new… _fancyman_ ," Maggie said, whispering 'fancyman' as if it were a dirty word.

"Do you?" Lizzie replied, taking a swig of cola between her bits of the conversation, and cupping the phone to her ear so she could hear Maggie over the great beating synths. She was stood outside the main hall, on one of the obversation decks. "Why?"

It was strange talking to Maggie from space, as if her phone produced an invisible cord stretching thousands of years, right across from the iCruiser to Maggie's tiny kitchen.

"Well," Maggie took a deep breath, and Lizzie was aware that a great big essay was incoming. "She phoned me yesterday, said she was down at Sainsbury's, and she was panicking. I asked her why, and she said she was worried that she'd left the oven on! You know Karen, she's a terrible worrier, so being neighbourly, I decided to go over. Anyway – I let myself in, I've got a spare key, you see – and there he is! Lying on the sofa, stinking of a brewery. Looked like that bloke off _New Faces_."

"Oh… right," Lizzie murmured, not exactly sure what to say. Karen and whoever the man was were both adults. There was nothing wrong with it. "Which one from _New Faces_?"

"What was his name… the presenter chap. It'll come to me later - I'll be doing something like putting out the bins or hanging up the washing. He looked younger than her, though."

"How old is Karen anyway?" Lizzie suddenly realised that for all she knew about Karen, she didn't know how old she was.

"Probably about my age."

"Oh…"

"So. Where are you? I can hear music…," Maggie asked suspiciously, as if she were wagging an audible finger.

"Oh, yeah. I'm on a spaceship thing. It's some… music ship, and there's this whole deck devoted to 80s music," Lizzie could hear the faint (what a lie, it was the opposite of faint) chorus of Radio Gaga booming out on the main floor just a few metres away from her.

"Ohh," Maggie sighed, as if she were about to start reminiscing. "I bet you're having a ball."

"Yeah," Lizzie smiled, looking out over the stars ahead of her. "I am."

"Derek Hobson!" Maggie suddenly declared.

"Who?" Lizzie thought Maggie had finally lost it.

"The man from _New Faces_. Hey… who was that group? They were bloody useless, looking back, but at the time, they were quite good. Were they 80s?"

"What group?"

" _Show_ something. _Show_ … _show_ … it'll come to me… _show_ … _show…_ oh! _Showaddywaddy_!" Maggie proclaimed again, being blessed with a second Eureka moment.

"I don't think so," Lizzie chuckled, having never even heard of them. " _New Faces_ was years before my time anyway! I wasn't even born for another… what, 20 years."

"Don't knock 'em. They were in the top 10. I think they might've had a number one…"

"Maggie," Lizzie said, realising she was shouting over the noise. "I'm gonna have to go. It's way too loud."

"Okay – ta ta love! And don't stay out of trouble! Live a little! Be like Karen with her drunkard gentleman caller!"

Lizzie slipped her phone away sighed. She wanted the trouble! She found herself quite enjoying it. But all the time, though she could fly across universes, there was still something that made her feel trapped. Something inside her, like a chain and ball, keeping her firmly on the ground. There was something about the spontaneity of the swirling nebula ahead that made her almost jealous. Envious of its freedom. Not that there was anything stopping her…

Except there was. It was her mind, mucking her about again. Stupid, stupid brain.

What she would give for just a few seconds of release, and she could dance, and fly, and not have to worry about tiny things that didn't even matter much. It wasn't even obvious what the tiny things were, but they were deeply rooted in her subconscious. If she had one wish, she would pluck them out, and enjoy life.

A few seconds passed and she noticed the Doctor walk out onto the deck behind her.

"Hey."

He joined her beside the window, looking out at a supernova.

"This is… strange," the Doctor murmured, placing a hand on the glass, and tracing the broken stars with his fingers. Lizzie nearly said something, but didn't. It seemed weird that of all the people, it would be the Doctor to find all this peculiar.

"First trip out with me in… what? Centuries?" Lizzie was pretty sure she had the right figure.

"Yes. I had… well, I had a normal life. I lived a normal life, and now this just feels strange," he stared gloomily out the window and into space. "Is this what it's like for you?"

Lizzie hesitated. Then she thought of Derek Hobson from _New Faces_. "Yeah."

The Doctor made a small grunting sort of sound, more an appreciative murmur, as for the first time, he stood on new territory. For the first time, he looked at Lizzie, and he understood something.

"That's why I do all this."

"Do what?"

"Pick people up. Fly into space. I've seen it so many times. I've been there, got the t-shirts, probably in all the sizes, colours, and armhole numbers available. So it's… it's good, having someone to share that with. Watching how it changes them."

"You're… such a god," she laughed, as if it were an insult. Which is was. He was being irritating and he still hadn't properly grasped it yet. The Doctor seemed to shiver.

"Humans. They're the gods to me."

Lizzie didn't really get what he was saying. Sometimes she thought he just said stuff for sentimentality's sake.

"You do everything you do, and you just… get on with it. I have to go and throw a hissy fit and draw attention to myself."

"You're a story, that's what you're meant to do."

"Hmm."

She placed a hand reassuringly on his shoulder and it wasn't too awkward so she kept it there.

"Sorry for being irritating," the Doctor admitted. "It happens. And it is because… I am so much smaller than you. It's all I can do, I suppose, to feel better…"

"I get it," she said, even though it was a rubbish apology.

"You are wonderful, Lizzie. And we make quite a team."

Lizzie couldn't help but smile. "Yeah… yeah, we do."

"Evangeline Cullengate is on this ship."

"Wait, what?" Lizzie had heard that name so many times, and never in a good context. The woman Iris had been getting irritated by. Lizzie had seen her on the TV once. Lizzie had sat down in Cione's living room once and watched one of her speeches, and grimaced the whole way through.

"She's here," the Doctor said, just as bluntly. "I'm not meant to know,"

 _No sh –_

"– but while you went to ring Maggie, Ronnie and I went to check the passenger logs. Turns out, her shuttle docked half an hour ago."

Lizzie took an urgent sip of her cola. "You don't think…"

"I do think," the Doctor nodded, definitely thinking on exactly the same lines as Lizzie. "I've heard so much about her, and I've seen her speak a few times. And, well... Iris doesn't like her."

"Vile woman…"

The Doctor looked at Lizzie, trying not to look too shocked. Lizzie noticed him looking and gave him a confused glance. He continued, ignoring their funny body-language conversation. The TARDIS translation matrix hadn't evolved that much yet (to Lizzie's annoyance more than anyone else's).

"I think it's time I met her."

"Enjoy…"

"I'd let you come, but I'm worried you'd punch her. That's odd, because it's you. But I can see she irritates you."

"There's a first time for everything…"

"Find Ronnie," the Doctor instructed, in that way he did when he expected everyone to do what he wanted. "Keep looking into these murders. There's probably no connection. But the fact Evangeline Cullengate is here? You'd have thought the captain would've warned her, told her it's too dangerous, perhaps."

He disappeared into the hubbub of the dancehall, and Lizzie finished her cola.

* * *

When the Doctor entered, he stopped, and sighed, and smiled.

He had been outsmarted.

As he stepped further into the room, Evangeline Cullengate did not take her eyes off him, as he turned and slowly shut the door behind him, before turning back to face her.

The chambers were exquisite. Lavish silk curtains bordered the glass observation windows – her room looked right out over the supernova on the horizon, and the Doctor treaded over the antique Persian rug as he walked over to look out over the burning stars ahead of them. Orbs of light were attached to the ceiling, illuminating the room just slightly with a cold, white glow. On top of a glass coffee table stood a ceramic glass, the heads of dahlias and magnolias nervously poking their heads over the top, at their table surrounded by the walls of the cream sofas, without even the speck of anything unsolicited.

Evangeline herself was perched on the edge of a leather armchair, part of the same set as the sofas – she wore a crisp, dark blue business suit, and a set of pearls around her neck. Her beady eyes followed the Doctor as he paced alongside the windows. Artworks hung up on the walls – paintings every century that had passed – paintings from centuries that hadn't passed.

" _The Storm on the Sea of Galilee_ ," the Doctor observed the golden framed painting hanging above the ornate marble mantelpiece. No fire burned that evening. "Rembrandt, 1633. It shows Jesus calming the storm on the sea of Galilee. A priceless artwork. And rightly so… it's beautiful."

The Doctor scanned over it with the sonic screwdriver, although he was certain he had no need. Of course the painting was genuine.

"And stolen," he continued, slipping the screwdriver inside the lining of his coat. "From the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990."

"Are you a fan of art, Doctor?" Evangeline asked. Her voice was eloquent, and her vowels enunciated. Proper Received Pronunciation. Her body remained motionless, her eyes still tracking the Doctor as he admired the art.

"Oh, absolutely. Did you steal it?"

"Hmm?" Evangeline was slightly taken aback.

"The painting?"

"Oh, good lord, no. I encountered it several years ago."

"When you were CEO of your real e-space company?" the Doctor sat down opposite her on one of the sofas, and Evangeline bristled and nodded, cringing at his impropriety.

"Yes. We dealt with many art dealers who established online galleries with us."

At that moment, a huge lump of golden dog bounced through from nowhere, almost like a trotting pony in how well trained it was, and slumped down at Cullengate's feet.

"Oh, Doctor. Do meet Hugo."

"Hello Hugo," the Doctor leaned forward. Hugo jumped up and ran into the Doctor's arms, and the Doctor ruffled his golden mane and ears. "Gooood boy. Good boy."

Evangeline watched in horror as her majestic Golden Retriever seemed more interested in the impertinent idiot who had just walked into her chambers. She clapped her hands, and suddenly Hugo shrugged the Doctor away and sprawled himself at Evangeline's feet, while a similar dog followed suit into the room, and lay down beside Hugo.

"This is Edwin. Hugo and Edwin are brothers."

"They're lovely animals," the Doctor watched the two dogs in their contentment. "I've got a dog."

"Oh?"

"K9."

"Yes…?"

"No, that's the dog's name."

Evangeline made to speak, but stopped herself, so a strange sort of exhaling of breath occurred instead. She changed the subject.

"Aren't you going to ask the obvious question?"

"This is what's confusing me," the Doctor admitted, looking at the blank-faced old woman opposite him. "Because something isn't quite right – you're not quite right."

Evangeline's laugh was that of a high-pitched cackle. "I don't understand."

"I think you do…"

Evangeline ignored him. "You still haven't worked it out yet. Goodness, I've heard legends about you, Doctor. But you're remarkably slow."

"For once, I'm not entirely sure what the obvious question is… why are you here at the same time as these murders? Why were you allowed to board when there's a killer on the ship? How do _you_ know about _me_. How are you commenting on the politics of several different situations, even those not from your time?"

Evangeline, for the first time, hesitated. "I'm Prime Minister of the Empire. You've defended us many times. I see it as my responsibility to acquaint myself with our protector."

"But you know me, you knew I'd be here, you get how I tick," the Doctor's voice slowed, and the 'k' clicked, like the sound of the hands on a clock slowly falling into place. "We've not met before, have we?"

"Oh, god no."

Maybe he was wrong. As the Doctor looked over at her, he was sure he'd never met her before. Normally, he could tell, even when it had only been just the once, as if they left some small, residual imprint on him.

Evangeline Cullengate was a completely brand-new person to him, with her pearls and golden retrievers called Hugo and Edwin.

And yet, at the same time, there was something familiar.

* * *

"We're missing something," Ronnie spoke, between a sip of his lager.

He was sat, with Lizzie, at the second bar – a much quieter affair, more like a wine bar perhaps, than the club-like noise and hubbub of the main dance hall. _Take On Me_ , by A-ha, played quietly in the background, and as Lizzie and Ronnie spoke they frequently found themselves punctuated by Morten Harket's forever surprising falsetto.

"There must be _something_ linking all the murders," he continued to muse, as Lizzie watched her fellow bar-goers chatting to each other, leaning over tables and giggling and whispering and just generally having a laugh. There wasn't a word to describe it, apart from… togetherness.

Then she turned back to Ronnie, and her heart sank as she thought to all those boxsets of _Silent Witness._

 _Wasn't it more likely for you to be murdered by someone you know_? Lizzie was pretty certain she'd read that somewhere. Maybe _that_ was the connection.

"Maybe all the victims know the same person or something…" she said.

"Well, whoever's been doing it, they're good. Because they leave _nothing_ behind. Got to be trained, surely, to get away with something like that."

"Definitely not an amateur, then," Lizzie felt stupid saying it, considering she was just an amateur herself. "But maybe that means the murders are random, if they don't feel the need to keep a constant pattern."

"Oi, mate!" Ronnie called over to the bartender. Lizzie wondered if he was going to say anything useful. "You got any pork scratchings?"

 _Clearly not_.

Lizzie grimaced as the vulture-like alien behind the bar tossed him a tiny packet of little pork scratchings.

"10 credits, sir."

"10 bleedin' credits?" he yelped, reaching to his watch and doing some electronic transfer technique. "Capitalism gone bleedin' mad… mind you, ain't as bad as the RFC upstairs."

"RFC?"

"Raxacoricofallapatorian Fried Chicken."

 _Was the future really as bleak as this?_ Lizzie wondered to herself, as Ronnie opened his packet and started munching away, washing each down with a swig of beer. Commodities shrunk, prices hiked. Aristocracy. Fast food explosion. Everything turned cold and clinical for the purpose of generating cash…

"Have you checked the bank accounts of the victims?" Lizzie asked. "Maybe they're all in…debt or something…"

"We gotta pay an access fee."

 _Of course._

"But if the killings weren't so… _creative_ , I'd be with you on that. Repossessions are done quickly and efficiently though, and they've got a license. Bailiffs leave no mess."

"You mean….?" Lizzie gasped, disgusted.

"What?"

"Bailiffs kill people?"

Ronnie gave her a bemused look. "What universe are you from, love?"

Lizzie sighed. One that was destined to become this one, apparently.

A universe where people are killed because they don't have the money. A universe where life is the commodity and where money is the ultimate gain. A universe not too far off her own, it was just a cracked mirror of her daily life. People were already spat at for asking for help. They were probably killed now.

Then, an idea came to Lizzie. Perhaps it was finally time for them to take down the economy.

"I think I know why the murders have happened."

* * *

Evangeline sat up, and decidedly put two hands on her lap, ready to begin. "Where would you like to begin your interrogation?" she mused, merely for the purposes of making a sociable joke, of course. There was no _friendliness_ about it.

"Oh, don't worry, I've done my pre-reading, this isn't an interrogation. More of a… confirmation, perhaps."

A man in a three-piece suit – perfectly dressed for a butler, strode in, carrying a tray upon which sat a silver tea pot, and floral china cups and saucers.

Evangeline gestured to the glass coffee table. "Thank you, James. Just down there, if you please."

"Yes, ma'am," James knelt down and placed the tray on the table.

"That will be all, James."

"Yes ma'am."

James hurried out, perhaps a little too quickly. Evangeline's eyes followed him, as if she were policing her staff's every move.

"Shall I be mother?" she said.

"Oh, yes please."

Evangeline, her hands perfectly still, took the silver teapot and with great ease and precision, poured two cups of dark, steaming tea.

"Milk? Sugar?"

"Just a dribble, and three sugars."

She looked up, to ensure he was being serious. He was.

"… right."

Evangeline did not take sugar. Of course, as the Doctor watched her every move, he wondered whether there was any significance there. There probably wasn't. But the new Prime Minister of the Empire was an anomaly, and he was determined to understand her.

"People are tired, you know. They are tired of the Time Lords," Evangeline said. She waited for the Doctor to drink first.

"Oh?" the Doctor deliberately held off drinking.

"Mm. The power you possess, and the way you utilise it. The tide has been turning, you know. Your _shambolic_ handling of the war so far has done you no favours."

The Doctor wondered whether Evangeline expected him to take any responsibility – after all, it wasn't as if any of it had been down to him. He'd tried to _prevent_ it.

"Ever since the Daleks descended upon Heaven. It is power, unfathomable to the people of the Empire. They think of it as just a legend, but it's _real_. That terrifies them."

"Believe me, Evangeline, that wasn't a good day for me, either."

"I was elected to protect them," she ignored him. "To provide the people with a voice. They are sick of politicians avoiding the problem. I was the only one to stand up and say no. We will _not_ be pushed around."

The Doctor finally took a sip of his tea, and Evangeline did the same.

"Did it ever occur to you that you don't have the solution to the problem?" he dared to ask.

She laughed, placing a hand on her knee, a vacant and theatrical attempt to pretend to stifle her laughter.

"Crucially," Evangeline said, her giggles halting immediately. "Nobody else has provided one. Nobody has even tried – and do you know why?"

 _I've a feeling you're going to tell me._ The Doctor gritted his teeth. He had a feeling that he wasn't going to like what she was going to say.

"Because the solution to a problem is never fun."

The Doctor was thankful he hadn't brought Lizzie with him. He prepared to say something, but she interrupted him, her passion for her beliefs burning sickeningly stronger.

"I know that first-hand, of course," Evangeline spoke as if it were the most casual thing in the world. "I came from nothing. My family were as poor as muck! But I created this," she gestured around her, before returning to her original point. "For some childish reason, the establishment believe we should all be helping each other. The 'status quo' states that it is the right thing to do. But in fact, all it has done is led us into deeper trouble."

"You know, you've really got no idea –"

Evangeline glared at him, a 'you don't interrupt me when I'm talking' kind of glare.

"There's no such thing as society, Doctor. And people _expect_. They _expect_ society to look after them. They believe in entitlement before obligation. But… it is a fantasy."

Lizzie and Ronnie had found themselves back on the operations bridge.

* * *

"Their search history," Lizzie told him. "Can we bring it up? What did they use the ship's computer system for, before they were killed?"

Lizzie was almost _certain_ she was right. Something about this ship had seemed strange from the beginning, and she was finally beginning to understand that it was the ship's _philosophy_.

"Where did this bright idea suddenly come from…," Ronnie muttered, as he typed into the computer.

 _Your pork scratchings._ "The entire purpose of this spaceship is to generate money…"

Lizzie had realised that it wasn't to do with money. All they had to do was dig a bit further. Get right to the root of it… to the core of the ideology itself.

"However," she continued. It went further than money, she was sure of it. It wasn't just people who want financial help. "Someone, I think, maybe, hopefully, is killing off those who need _help_."

Ronnie looked up from the keyboard. Lizzie prepared for the incoming rant. But it made sense – she was sure of it. When life becomes the commodity, needing help was a weakness. A defective product. And did manufacturers do to defective products?

"Right," he was calm. "So, are we expecting to see that all of the victims activated some kind of… I dunno, _assistance_ function on their computers, before they were killed?"

"Erm, yeah! I guess."

Lizzie assumed that the killer, therefore, was someone who worked on the iCruiser. Someone who assassinated people who weren't functioning at _optimum capacity_ , or something like that.

"Bloody nora…" Ronnie's jaw dropped, metaphorically, perhaps, to the Mosh Pit. "You're right!"

Lizzie sidled around the table full of papers and documentation, which had actually turned out to be useless. It wasn't a complex issue, it was an age-old one. But it was a dangerous one.

"The private computer systems have a 'help' function. You type in your query about life on the iCruiser, and it'll search the ship's databases for an answer."

The first thing that struck Lizzie was that barely anybody had used the 'help' function. It was a mark of the state of society when people had got too scared to ask for help, out of fear of losing part of their life. Or in this case, their life. "And only five people have used it?"

"Yeah. I mean, ship's got pretty detailed instruction manuals, and people often ask staff."

Lizzie raised an eyebrow, but decided that now was not the time to merely remark on the dreadful state of affairs – they had to do something.

"Can we stop it? Shut down the system?"

"I think so," Ronnie tapped away at the keyboard. "I'm on it…"

Lizzie gave him a reassuring smile. Except Ronnie's face fell, and a look of terror blazed in his eyes.

She thought she heard him call out for her as the blunt object crunched into the side of her cranium. Her head lurched forward as her skull ricocheted against the thwack, and her legs snapped beneath her, sending her onto her knees, as if the only hope she could find was through praying. Something like a hand threw her face first, and she could see Ronnie's battered boots as consciousness finally left her.

* * *

 _I used to think maybe you love me, now baby I'm sure_

 _And I just can't wait till the day, when you knock on my door_

Unusually for an insomniac, Lizzie's eyes refused to open. In fact, if her head wasn't pounding like the speakers in the dance hall, and her mouth drier than sandpaper, she'd have volunteered to be struck over the head with a blunt object more often.

Her head was clear for once. There was, bar the raw aching in the side of her temple, a vacuum of thoughts being thought of. She couldn't stress or worry because she couldn't think of anything. The wooziness was like floating on a cloud, high above all her troubles.

The dull agony in her head was a reminder of the truth.

Sadly, it was not to last. Her mind was starting up again, like a computer that had just been switched on and off again – but one that had been taken over by some virus, and was chugging along slowly. Files were being sorted, a password typed in, the wheel of death spinning ad infinitum, and finally, the desktop. She could navigate the pits of her brain now. Lizzie Darwin was back in the real world.

She wasn't _exactly_ sure what the real world was, because she couldn't see anything.

Lizzie screamed – in her head, she didn't want to scream aloud in case the person who had smashed the object into her head was nearby. That was all that prevented her terror from bubbling over in an audible spill – that lone survival instinct, fighting above all else to keep her alive.

But she wanted to see, all she wanted to do was see. The system would silence her no longer.

Eventually, proprioception was thrown back into gear and she could find control over her hands. Giving her fingers a reassuring wiggle, she rose them to her head – she flicked them back when she felt something damp keeping her hair matted to her face.

 _Blood_.

She forgot about the blood – she had to forget about the blood. _Second time lucky…_

Her fingers prised open her eyelids, and the air was warily cool against that thin layer of gel protecting the delicacy of her eyeball from the horrors of the real world.

 _Now cause every time I go for the mail box, gotta hold myself down_

 _Cause I just can't wait till you write me, you're coming around_

Lizzie took a look around her, trying to see if she could see _anything_. She was restrained – tied to a chair by some thick cable, the sort that looked as if it had been professionally made for the purpose of trapping someone. The room was in darkness. Actually – it was barely a room, it was almost the size of an aircraft hangar, more in the ilk of an indoor stadium than anything else. She realised that she was stood on a platform in the centre – a stage, as if she were the one on show. Except, she was on show for nobody. The stage was empty.

Eventually, when she overcame the soreness of her neck, she glanced upwards, revealing the glass ceiling, like the observatory in the TARDIS, with the colourful conglomeration of interstellar objects whirling and whizzing above her head.

 _Almost jealous of those stars, again. Especially now._

There was something else, that she wasn't quite sure of. A sound, above the shrill screaming of her headache, only louder than her headache because it was, she realised, not just in her head.

There was a song playing.

The pieces of the _80s-song-based-murders-all-because-of- rogue computer-program_ puzzle finally slotted together in her head, as if they'd all been leading up to this moment.

At that moment, as part of the ship's flight, light crept into the room from the observatory. Just one tiny ray at first, bursting through the glass and gently stroking her arm. She yelped and flicked it away, like an animal that touched a fire and jolted itself away as fast as possible. It burned. Thankfully, her lower arm was free.

 _I'm walking on sunshine! Whoa oh!_

 _I'm walking on sunshine! Woah oh!_

 _I'm walking on sunshine! Woah oh!_

 _And don't it feel good!_

 _Well, not really_ , Lizzie mused, as it truly dawned on her that the ship was flying past a massive sun, and the exo-tonic shields that _should_ have been covering the observatory hadn't been raised. More to the point, the ship flew slowly, and so they would probably be flying past it for about half an hour.

What would get her first? The burning or the blindness? And half an hour. An agonising way to go.

 _No_ , she told herself, refusing to think pessimistically.

Thankfully, because they were so many years in the future, mobile phones were long dead, and so her kidnapper had been reckless enough to leave hers in her pocket. After doing a quick check, to ensure that said kidnapper was not anywhere nearby and watching her, Lizzie tried to wriggle her hand through the constricting cable into her pocket. Her fingers grabbed the phone, and, although it nearly slipped and slid out of her grasp several times, she eventually held it in front of her.

Unfortunately, her upper arms were bound. Lizzie dialled the Doctor, and kept it on speaker, so she could shout at it without needing to raise it to her ear.

"Hello?"

* * *

"Sorry, Eva," the Doctor placed his saucer on the coffee table and grabbed the ringing mobile in his pocket. Evangeline Cullengate gave him the most horrified, disgusted look he'd ever seen, as he walked over to the window and answered.

"Lizzie?"

"Okay, so," Lizzie began, not quite sure how to word the situation, as she tried to shuffle the chair she was bound to away from the advancing rays of sunshine. "I've got some good news and some bad news."

"What's the bad news?"

"Someone…," she muttered between deep breaths, as she expelled all energy in shifting the chair just an inch and a half. "Whoever is doing the killing has got me."

The Doctor grabbed the phone closer to his ear, as if somehow it would enable him to save her. So long away from this, and he had got it so badly wrong on their first venture back into space together for years.

"What song have you got?" he demanded. "Lizzie! Tell me!"

"Erm…," Lizzie tried to shield her eyes away from the glare of the sun.

"Lizzie!"

"Walking on Sunshine," she admitted.

"… right."

"Yep."

"Okay."

"It is a bit hot."

"I can imagine. I expect they've lowered the exo-tonic shields, yes?" the Doctor spoke quickly, waving his hand to try and make her talk quickly as well.

"I think so…"

"Where are you? I'm coming to get you."

Lizzie peered around her, seeing if there was any indication of a location, other than _bloody massive stadium._ Her situation literally hadn't shed any light on her location either. "It's a stadium. A really, really big one, and I'm on a stage in the middle of it."

"One of the concert halls, I should expect. Lizzie, sit tight."

"I don't really have much choice."

He made to hang up, but stopped himself, mentally rewinding. "Oh! What's the good news?"

"Oh, yeah," Lizzie said, having forgotten herself. It wasn't particularly high up her list of priorities. "It's killing the people that ask for help – the people who submit an assistance request through the system."

"Oh… Lizzie! You're a genius!"

"I'm really not haha I've got no idea what's going on," she tried to wiggle the chair a little bit further away from the ever-increasing concentration of sunlight.

"Lizzie, on my life, I am on my way!"

The Doctor hung up.

"Good o," Lizzie muttered. At that moment, a hand yanked her telephone from her hand, and threw it off the stage, into the screaming crowds of nobody.

* * *

"Sorry Eva," the Doctor ran over to the door. "I'd love to stay and chat, but my best friend is in danger. And if I find out you've got anything to do with it, I will make sure you're out of office by this evening."

At that moment, Evangeline did the unexpected. She stood up, and she swaggered over to him, squaring up to him as if she were about to take him on in a fist fight.

"Have you got children, Doctor?"

"Yes."

"Then perhaps you will stop seeing me as so repulsive. I will provide your daughter with a better future."

He had never mentioned his daughter.

"Evangeline, yes – I do have a daughter. And I gave up my whole life for a hundred years to face up to my responsibilities. And I don't regret it. Because that's what all this is about. _Responsibilities._ And how people like you are determined to avoid them."

He threw open the door, took Evangeline's hand, and shook it. He was almost certain that this wasn't going to be the last time they met.

And then Evangeline scowled at him, and spoke with a venom on her tongue that the Doctor hadn't yet heard from her. "The Doctor and Darwin, throwing yourselves at the universe as if the universe gives a damn. Well let me tell you, it doesn't."

Before leaving, he offered her one final, smug grin.

"The universe isn't quite finished with us yet."

* * *

"You have found my secret."

In front of Lizzie, there stood a hooded figure, robed in navy blue. It spoke in a deep, sonorous, yet villainous voice, and it waited motionlessly. Interestingly, it hadn't pulled her back under the stream of ferocious, burning sunlight. Perhaps it wanted to talk?

"Yeah. Sorry about that…," she came across as smugger than she'd intended. "Sorry, not wanting to like, disrespect whoever you are."

Although she was interested – who _were_ they?

At that moment, as if the figure were reading her mind, they whipped back their hood, to reveal…

Well, she wasn't quite sure. But its head was a cube, made up of smaller cubes. Three by three by three – twenty-seven little cubes making up the big cube. And each little cube was a different colour.

Its head was a Rubik's Cube.

"Oh. Hello," she waved at it, even more awkwardly than usual considering the restraints on her arms. Lizzie also noticed a pair of rather expensive headphones over the top of the cube.

"I am the Rubix," it snarled, stepping closer to her, glaring at her through a green square and a blue square. "And _I_ am the killer."

From her crime drama experience, Lizzie was pretty certain the confession shouldn't have been as easy as that. Presumably whoever the Rubix was, they were proud of the murders, as displayed through the camp glee with which it came clean.

"I am here to ensure that correct guidelines are maintained, and to ensure the ship runs at optimum capacity."

"So you kill those who are limiting that? That's… _abhorrent_." She hated the situation even more, as she heard the emotionless syntax it spoke with, as if it were doing everyone a great service. Capitalism – ruining those who need help for way, way too long.

"That is how the universe works. Nothing you can do about it."

They were a strange person, speaking with a strange mix of 80s slang and robotically correct grammar.

"It doesn't need to be!" Lizzie protested, with as much vigour as she could from being sat down. "God, how stupid do you have to be to think that _this_ is working."

"You are young," the Rubix came a bit too close for comfort. "You think you are entitled. You are _not_. Honestly, the kids nowadays…"

"You treat life as a product, as if it hasn't got any value other than a monetary value. It's sick!"

"And you, Elizabeth Darwin, are preventing this ship from running at optimum capacity. Therefore, you must be eliminated."

At least she was dying for a cause she believed in.

"You know, one day, you'll learn that this stupid ideology you're propelling has been holding back the universe for way, way too long, and – ow, ow, ow," she felt tears roll down her cheek, and then evaporate in the sunlight. "Oh my god, stop it –"

But then, in the deathly silence, a familiar synth beat exploded in the stadium.

In the darkness above the arena, a mushroom cloud of dry ice washed down like a huge, slow-motion tsunami, shrouding the stage in a dense fog. The Rubix recoiled in horror, as through the shadows, there was something coming down from the sky.

It was godlike, floating from the heavens, as Europe's _The Final Countdown_ deafened Lizzie and the Rubix. Slowly the mist parted, and the divine figure became clearer – it was a man, parting the fog like Moses parted the Red Sea, and he was flying, hovering down to the stage below him.

It was the Doctor.

Except he wore the brightest pair of neon-red spandex trousers that Lizzie had seen in her life. A vomit-yellow tank top was hung from his shoulders beneath his Edwardian jacket, and a pink headband was slapped onto his head, and his hair had been mussed up and gelled.

"Oh my god," Lizzie spluttered, as the Doctor raised his arms above him as if he were about to intone a Mexican wave amongst the non-existent crowds.

 _IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN._

The man began to take steps. He was walking amongst men now, the true second-coming of 1980s culture. The mist was lifting now, revealing the Doctor and his new look in all his glory.

"It's the final countdown," he said.

"What is this nonsense?" the Rubix snarled, as the Doctor strode down from the stage, his Edwardian jacket, now with added sparkles, Lizzie noticed, trailing behind him.

"Oh, believe me, I'm not joking," the Doctor glanced at his watch. "Approximately seven minutes to go before the ship crashes.

At that moment, a giant timer was projected on the wall in huge, red letters. It now displayed 06:55

"That'll be Ronnie, projecting the time until we land."

"You would risk the life of yourself and your friend?" the Rubix asked.

"And the detective? And the captain, and the crew, and the singers, and all the passengers as well?" the Doctor took a seat. "If we go down, we go down together."

"There's no such thing as _together_ ," the Rubix spat (if it could spit through its neon coloured cubes).

"Glorious, isn't it?" the Doctor reached into his pocket and chucked out three glowsticks, an NES remote, and finally settling on a Caramac, which he unwrapped and started munching into.

"You bring us all down, and yet at the same time, prove why what you believe will never work. Because people are coming _together_ ," Lizzie murmured. When the Rubix, and the Doctor, turned to look at her, she was startled. But she continued, and this time, she spoke louder. "Everyone, apart from you lot. You, and... and the Captain, and Evangeline Cullengate, will probably just teleport off this ship while we all burn. But in the end, I guess, probably, it'll be you that will burn. In the end - people like us, in this spaceship, maybe, hopefully, will build something better."

The Doctor applauded, and Lizzie smiled awkwardly.

"They should make you Prime Minister."

Lizzie quickly put the suggestion to bed. "Oh god no."

The Rubix started to give a mocking applause. "You truly are a stupid little girl."

Suddenly, the ship jerked and rocked, sending the Rubix stumbling, their regaining of balance even more dramatic and ridiculous than its original tumble.

"Oh look," the Doctor checked his fob watch. "Can't be more than five and a half minutes until touchdown."

The Rubix stared at him blankly. "You will explain why you are crashing this ship!"

"I could," the Doctor admitted. "But I'm sorry, Rubix. Because that would be the end for you."

Five minutes, the clock said. And it continued to tick, each sound marking a second closer to their deaths. Each tick felt like a blade, cutting agonisingly deeper as each second passed.

"I will not die!" the Rubix protested. "I will leave you to burn, I will teleport away."

"Not possible, I'm afraid."

The Doctor's voice turned cold. Colder than Lizzie had heard it before. Perhaps a hundred years of parenting had changed him. Perhaps now, he was determined to protect his daughter, no matter what the cost.

"You've got a dilemma. You can't leave this ship, meaning you can either crash with it, or save the ship. And then die."

"I! WILL! NOT! DIE!"

"YOU HAVEN'T GOT A CHOICE!" the Doctor roared, throwing himself out of his seat. He jumped out of his seat, coming closer to the Rubix. "Behaving like you are, you were always destined for this, it was always destined to end this way. You can't hang on any longer."

The Rubix spoke monotonously and chillingly. "Then everyone will die."

 _Capitalists. Always so stubborn,_ Lizzie thought.

The Doctor shrugged, as if he were giving up. Perhaps nothing could be done. "Then perhaps the crashing of this ship will show people what you've all done to the universe. Where persecuting those who need help leads in the end. And if that plays any part of winning the fight, then good! So be it!"

"You will die screaming."

"I will die happy," the Doctor was resolute. "Because it will have helped save my daughter from you horrific people."

"As will I," Lizzie agreed.

"And me!"

Lizzie looked down to the rows of seating, to see Ronnie dashing into the great stadium, his trench coat flowing behind him. He jumped up onto the stage, and with a knife, sliced through the cabling trapping Lizzie to the chair. The three of them stood up, and they took places beside each other.

The Rubix seemed much smaller now, as if it had sunk into itself and was digging for any small element of argument it had left. None, it seemed. It would still lose, even if the ship were to crash.

"You will explain."

"And you'll die?"

The Rubix seemed reluctant.

"Yes…"

The Doctor dashed over to the terminal in the centre of the stage, and leant back on it. His anger was gone now, replaced by a smug grin. "the biggest problem with this ship. _You_. You're a computer program, a string of code."

Suddenly, it all made sense. Why the killings had been so perfect, how no human trace had been left behind. Because they were done by a walking computer, with everything executed perfectly. _Of course_ the crime dramas hadn't prepared Lizzie for that.

"You've got no concept of human emotion. You'll kill off the weak, those who ask for help, because that's what you see as most logical. What you don't actually understand is that firstly, it's disgusting, and secondly, and more superiorly," the Doctor stood up, and squared up to Rubix. "It isn't logical either."

"You speak in riddles."

"I'm not the one crashing this ship, Rubix. You are."

There was silence, which was only punctuated by the tick, tick, ticking of the clock. Only a minute to go until the ship crashed into the planet below.

"What."

Abruptly the ship vigorously trembled again, throwing Ronnie onto the floor, and making the Rubix fall backwards.

"Do you truly think I would _ever_ kill so many people? Innocent, good people? No... the computer system has gone too far. It's identified the entire population of the ship as weak. So, what's it going to do? Crash the whole ship. Kill them all off at once."

They were approaching the ground, now, and the clock was on thirty seconds. They could tell, as the ship was violently quaking, making it almost impossible to stand upright.

Lizzie was hoping the revolution would happen sooner rather than later.

The Rubix strode over to the screen, shoved the Doctor out of the way, and typed in its password. Lizzie grabbed the Doctor, helping him back up, while the screen flashed red with **'access denied. Please enjoy the music.'** In a wave of anger, the Rubix punched straight through the screen.

"How is this possible?" he cried, whipping off his headphones and tossing them on the floor. "How did _I_ not know?!"

"The computer system operates on a tier-based OS. You, the program that initiates the kills, the literal executor, works independently to the program that gives the order. That's what happens when there's no society…"

"NO!" the Rubix bellowed. "NO!" as if repeating it would stop what was happening from all coming together.

Lizzie couldn't help but smile, as she saw the Rubix fall to the ground for a final time, and she felt the ship turn upright again, plateauing on its original course.

When she blinked, the Rubix had vanished.

It was just the three of them in the stadium. And the millions of others on the ship, all who had survived. All of whom wouldn't have to worry about asking for help.

"Haha!" Ronnie clapped and cheered. "Not bad!"

As the ship fully regained its original stability, Lizzie spoke. "Why did it vanish?" she asked.

"Because we got to the bottom of what it believed?" the Doctor suggested. "Perhaps, through the Rubix, we proved the ship wrong. Its current system was far from the best way of being prosperous. And so it saw no need to continue as it was, and… maybe it deleted the code."

Lizzie turned to see Ronnie, stand up and dust himself off. "Well! That were bleedin' brilliant! Nice one, team!"

The Doctor laughed, and looked around at the two of them. "Yes. Well done everyone."

"God, I'm desperate for a drink. Pub, anyone?" Ronnie proclaimed.

"Pub," the Doctor turned to make sure Lizzie was okay.

"Pub," Lizzie confirmed, smiling at the two of them, in their own methods of ridiculousness.

The three of them left the stadium.

* * *

"What _is_ this?" the Doctor grimaced as the cold liquid slunk down his throat. "It's…"

"Glorious," Ronnie closed his eyes and looked upwards, as if his ale had been divinely tampered with. Lizzie, meanwhile, had stuck to something soft. She wasn't one for drinking.

"There's something I'm missing," the Doctor mused aloud, while Ronnie watched some intergalactic game of football from the screen in the corner of the pub. It was decked out in a traditional English style, but with some 52nd century alternations.

"What was Evangeline Cullengate like?" Lizzie asked, before taking a sip from her cola.

"That was it!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Cullengate owns the internet. There was a branch of her company, and they specialised in producing OSes for spaceships that combined online and engineering practises. And the company branch? _Rubix…_."

Ronnie swore a bit too loudly when he finally realised. "She was behind the whole bloody thing?"

 _Unfortunately not_ , Lizzie thought. Only indirectly connected. And, as Ronnie was about to confirm, she was probably untouchable through her status anyway.

"Sadly not," the Doctor admitted. "Her company created the system, she had nothing to do with the installation or settings."

"Even so," Lizzie spoke out. "It's an injustice. That she can do all that and get away with it," Lizzie's skin crawled to think at the fact there were probably other ships in danger of the same.

"No bloody point to policing nowadays," Ronnie looked glumly over the rim of his pint glass. "Can't arrest half the bastards."

The Doctor placed a hand on Ronnie's shoulder. "You can try, though."

Ronnie's face perked up a bit. "You know what? I bleedin' well can!" he kissed the Doctor's forehead, and gave Lizzie a firm handshake. "I think you two have given me the kick up the arse I needed!"

The Doctor, still slightly stunned from the kiss, couldn't help but be delighted that they'd made such a difference. This was why they'd come back to it, after so much time away with Iris.

"You mark my words!" Ronnie began to stride away from them. "This will end! Hey – I'll see you around on the ship, perhaps? Or if not, well - we'll run into each other again, I'm sure."

"See you around," the Doctor said, and Lizzie waved him off.

Before long, the Doctor and Lizzie made their way into the club, where they sat and finished their drinks, while listening to the music.

"I dare you to dance," the Doctor said, before laughing to himself like a child. Lizzie glared at him, because it was never going to happen. His sentiments from when they first arrived hadn't properly sunk in... so, he would have to try a different tactic.

She laughed it off, as if it were a joke, which she hoped it was, she really, _really_ hoped it was, but she knew it wasn't.

"Oh, go on," the Doctor continued, verbally prodding her in the side. "I said earlier, didn't I? Don't ever be afraid to ask for help? So, this is me... helping you."

"No," she shook her head, as if trying to shake off the notion that she could ever dance. "And besides. I never asked."

"I think you did," the Doctor mused, thinking back to earlier, after Lizzie's phonecall with Maggie. He'd seen her, staring out at the stars ahead. Looking sad. Looking as if all she wanted was just... help.

Or was it that she couldn't dance, or _wouldn't_ dance? Perhaps that invisible cord, always keeping her tied up, was just holding her back, refusing to let her have fun. She would never know, because she was too scared.

"I did the most terrifying thing for a hundred years," the Doctor placed a hand over hers. "I'm a Dad."

Lizzie gave him a look.

Not a 'please go away' look, as it had been before. More of a 'oh god I really hate you but actually think you're brilliant at the same time' look.

She stood up. All her instincts were telling her to sit back down you stupid girl, nothing good was going to come of this, you might as well give up before you've even begun. Oh please Lizzie, stop it now, this is just ridiculous.

Lizzie ignored her instincts, and walked, and she probably looked a bit stupid but it was nothing in comparison of the movements she was about to make. When she turned to see if he was watching her, he was, with his annoying and stupid smug face that actually made her smile more than anything else.

What now? She asked herself, as the bodies sort of sidled around her, and she stood rigid and motionless and _awkward_ in the middle of them.

And then she felt it – slowly at first, as if it was there, but growing, bit by bit, and not quite reaching its peak. The rhythm was slowly creeping inside her. Her blood began to sway gently along with it, dancing to the constant, thumping synths. And gradually as the music progressed, her blood stopped swaying and started dancing, and she felt every pint pump through her veins, the inner drum of her body seized from her heart and replaced by some tune from the 80s. And then before she knew it, she herself was dancing, and she didn't even care what she was doing, because everything revolved around that one, simple rhythm.  
And in those seconds, she could have gone anywhere.

Suddenly, Elizabeth Darwin felt freer than she ever had in her life, as she waved her arms wildly above her head, and she felt her hair swing sullenly around her, and she didn't even care how ridiculous she looked, because life was ridiculous and she was willing to be its accomplice for once. Everyone around her was united, all the divisions between them healed by music, the ultimate doctor. Strobe lights burst in and out of life, blinding her temporarily in a kaleidoscope of neon pink and lime green and bubble-gum blue, and the floor beneath her was a mixture of shades more gloriously garish than she'd ever witnessed. And out the reinforced ten-feet-of-solid-glass-and-steel windows, the stars burned and tumbled and glimmered brighter than the hope bubbling up inside her now, and for those briefest of seconds, she thought everything was ecstatic in its wonderfulness.

The cord had been cut, and she was no longer jealous of the stars above.


	11. 509 Start New Game

**PROLOGUE**

Meiko couldn't bear much more snivelling.

Gently she pushed open the door to the strange room at the top of the house, and she crept in.

"Lizzie," she whispered. "What's wrong?"

Lizzie had been crying into her pillow all night, hours and hours of quiet, tortured sobs. Meiko had only been at the children's home a couple of months, whilst Lizzie had been a resident for three years, but already she had found herself taking the girl in that funny little room at the top of the house under her wing. Three flights of stairs, hidden away. She had her own room, Lizzie. Nobody shared with her... the tears would wake them up.

"Nothing," Lizzie said, her voice shaking through a blocked nose. "Sorry."

Lizzie Darwin and Meiko Saito were about the same age. Nine, but Meiko was a few weeks older. People had a hard time believing they were so close, though; Meiko stood taller, her back straighter; she spoke more loudly and clearly, just as Mother had taught her. Lizzie was a much more anxious thing, looking for skirts to hide behind.

Meiko sighed. There it was again, the stab of pain whenever she thought about Mother and Father, the sob that bubbled up in her throat but never quite escaped her lips. Nearly four months since the car accident had taken their lives, and she still hadn't cried, only bottled up the pain and guilt until it burned.

She was glad to have Lizzie. She was something to focus on.

Quickly, she clambered over and sat herself on the edge of Lizzie's bed.

"You can talk to me, Lizzie," Meiko said. "It's really boring if we never talk to each other."

Lizzie brought her face from out her pillow – she was red and puffy and stained with tears and snot. "Sorry," she said again. "I didn't mean to wake you up. I'm just…sad."

Meiko knew all about that. Everyone in this home was sad, one way or another. You could comfort someone if they had a specific problem, she found, but for just feeling sad…that was hard to make better. Often, the comfort would fly over their heads. When the mind was closed off to happy thoughts, happy thoughts were rarely successful.

"Let me show you something," she reached into her dressing down.

Her hand touched plastic, and Meiko grinned – her Gameboy.

Back in Japan, he father's brother, Uncle Nobusuke, worked as some sort of supply manager. Electronics, mostly. Including videogames. When Mother and Father died, Meiko assumed she would go to live with him…but the men in suits said there were immigration issues. And a fraud trial. To be honest, Meiko didn't really understand.

But Uncle Nobusuke could still send her mail. And sometimes, he'd send her games.

The latest one had arrived only yesterday. 'The Secret of the Dark Yurei', it was called; a pretty simple, top-down exploration game, you'd enter buildings and find clues, try and piece together the identity of the vengeful spirit haunting the town. Meiko loved videogames, and this one especially grabbed her – in only two days, she was almost three quarters of the way through.

Gameboy in hand, she climbed back into Lizzie's bed, crawling up to the pillow and lying next to her friend. "Here," she said, showing her the game. "My uncle sent it to me. We can play for a while?"

Lizzie sniffed, and managed a smile. "Okay."

Meiko grinned back, and hit the button: _Start New Game._

They played for a few hours, the older girl translating the Japanese text for the younger. After a time, Lizzie drifted off to sleep, her sobbing replaced by soft snores. In the soft grey light of the Gameboy, her face looked serene.

Satisfied with her work, Meiko quietly made her way out of the room, slipping the game back into her dressing gown. Then, she crept down the stairs, and back into her own room. Within a few minutes of resting in her bed and closing her eyes, sleep came to her as well.

 _Meiko …_

The word was quiet, like a whisper, barely enough to disturb her from her sleep. But it was there.

 _Meiko …_

She sat up. "Who's there?" she said, quietly.

 _Mei…ko…_

From beneath her bed, the soft grey light spilled outwards, flowing like water across the room, casting long, imposing shadows, sucking the colour from the books and clothes and paintings on the walls until they looked faint, faraway and ghostly.

She kept her body on the bed, but Meiko lowered her head over the edge, to peek at whatever was creating the light, and whatever was speaking her name. Each falling lock of her hair made her flinch, tiny shadows flitting across her vision, playing with her imagination.

The source was the Gameboy, and Meiko breathed a tiny sigh of relief. You just forgot to turn it off, she told herself, and the voice, that was just your imagination.

Still upside down, she grabbed the device – it was on the menu screen, the selector arrow hovering over the new game option. She pushed the buttons, but the arrow didn't move; she held down the power button, but the screen remained alight. Meiko bit her lip, and, unable to think of anything else to do, pushed _Start New Game_.

 _MEIKO!_

The voice came like a rush of wind, so loud Meiko's eyes watered. But the house remained silent. She pushed herself off her bed and stood upright, hugging the Gameboy close to her chest. The light from the Gameboy had died, but still the room seemed pale and ghostly, not truly dark at all, as if bathed in alien moonlight.

The door to the corridor had come slightly ajar. The voice must have come through there, Meiko reasoned, just one of the other children trying to frighten her. She was a brave girl, everybody said so, and she wasn't about to let some mean boy get away with scaring her.

She took tentative, barefoot steps into the corridor, mindful of creaking wooden floorboards.

The corridor was painted in the same grey, alien colour as her bedroom, the pitch-black banished to the darkest corners by the ever-present eeriness. Meiko looked left, towards the stairwell, and saw nothing suspicious.

Then, she looked right, towards the bathroom. In the gap between the floor and the door, the strange grey light flickered, casting strange shadows, as if someone had plucked the light from her Gameboy screen and dropped it behind the door.

Meiko started her journey to the light feeling strong, ready to confront whatever idiot was playing stupid games. But with every step, a strange feeling built up inside her. The light beyond seemed to give off a warmth she hadn't felt in months, and, at the same time, a coldness that had become all the familiar.

Tears welled in her eyes as she reached the bathroom door, slowly and deliberately placing her hand on the knob. She opened slowly, peering into the light. She didn't know why she said it, but the question forced its way out her throat: "Mother?"

The light disappeared. The Gameboy clattered to the ground, and Meiko was gone.

 **THE EIGHTH DOCTOR ADVENTURES**

 **SERIES 5 – EPISODE 9**

 **START NEW GAME**

 **WRITTEN BY JAMES BLANCHARD**

The TARDIS was strangely quiet as Lizzie told her story, the usual hum of her engines and whir of her console muted as she spoke. Maybe she's listening to me, Lizzie thought.

"They found her Gameboy outside the bathroom," she said to the Doctor. He had his bum parked on the edge of the TARDIS console, his arms crossed, and his eyebrows knit together in a tight frown, presumably to try and communicate to her that he was, in fact, listening.

"The police searched for three months, but they didn't find her. No sightings, no body, no anything. There were no signs of forced entry, so it didn't look like a kidnapping. I always thought she ran away, that having to be mother to everyone was getting her down, ended up lost in some dark field. Broke her leg, something like that."

Lizzie looked down to her shoes, rubbing her nose and sniffing. It was an anxious habit. She straightened out the newspaper on her lap. "I didn't always think like that, obviously. I was only a kid. I don't think I accepted she wasn't coming back til I was sixteen."

"But now you think differently?" the Doctor asked.

She held up the front page for the Doctor to see. It was a Japanese newspaper, the _Yomiuri Shimbun_ , but the TARDIS translated the headline: _Eight Children Missing, Video Game Detectives' Only Lead_.

She'd found it in the deeper bowels of the TARDIS library, an archive of historical newspapers and journals, both human and alien. She'd been down there hours, reading until her eyes could barely stay open, when she happened upon this one particular newspaper, from 1999.

The Doctor always said the TARDIS was psychic, and Lizzie believed him; it was as if the ship has purposely shuffled the shelves so she would find it. She'd cried for twenty minutes as the memories of her friend came flooding back…but the Doctor didn't need to know that.

"It's the same game," she told him. "'The Secret of the Dark Yurei'. It wasn't released it Britain, but she had a copy from Japan. If there is a link…if we could find those children…"

"Then we can find Meiko too?" The Doctor asked. "It makes sense. But it was a long time ago, Lizzie."

"I know," She did the thing again, examination her shoes and brushing her nose. "But Meiko was sweet. She was a good friend, and only a kid. She deserved better."

"Have you considered…?"

"Time travel?" Lizzie gave him a knowing smile. "I have. I haven't read ahead, I have no idea whether those kids are found or not. And if we do find Meiko, I know we have to keep her away from my past self. No possibility of paradoxes here. So, if we can save her, it's worth a shot, right?"

The Doctor smiled at his companion. "You've thought of everything, haven't you?"

"Hey, we've been together a while now. Are you really so surprised I've started to learn?"

"Not in the slightest, Lizzie Darwin. Not in the slightest," the Time Lord pushed himself away from the console, spinning to face the controls. He pulled a lever, and the time rotor began to pick up speed, the familiar wheezing of the TARDIS in flight beginning to echo around the room.

"I can't make any promises," the Doctor said, stepping towards Lizzie and grabbing the newspaper. He inspected the print closely. "But," he said, after a couple of seconds, "I'll do my best to find her, Lizzie."

"Thank you," Lizzie replied, and suddenly the tears she shed in the library seemed a tiny bit more worthwhile.

* * *

The bustle of human traffic was like a humid, heavy blanket, rolling like hot waves over Akio Kido as he made his way to work. Every breath seemed to be shared with someone else – their perfume, their sweat, what they had for lunch.

Lost in thought as he was, the rest of the world was inescapable. Judgemental eyes around every corner, nervous brushing of the brow.

Itsumi?

No. No, just another tall girl with bright eyes, laughing lightly with her friends.

The stress is getting to me, that is all, Kido thought to himself. The world and memory is blending together.  
He stopped at the newspaper stand to collect his copy of the _Yomiuri Shimbun,_ as he did every morning. The old man behind the counter, toothless and smoking, said nothing as he took Kido's money.

He glanced at the headline before moving on: _Eight Children Missing, Video Game Detectives' Only Lead._

Twenty minutes later, and he finally arrived at his work – Tokyo Police Headquarters. He took his normal, sombre walk through the lobby, head down and pointed straightforward to the elevator. Avoid all stares, all eye contact. A man in green leaned against the reception desk, waiting to be met by someone more important than Kido, no doubt – _Keimuati_ , military police, for sure. The man gave him a steely look as he passed.

In the elevator, and Kido pushed the button to his floor – eight. The ascent felt like it took forever but, after an age, he finally arrived in his office.

"Good morning, Inspector Kido," his assistant greeted him as he stepped through the doors, bowing – somewhat too deeply – as he always did. Kido's assistant was a tall man, hair cropped short, wrapped in a tight dark suit that made him look like a walking pencil, which was appropriate, given his main function mostly consisted of writing things down.

"Good morning," the Inspector answered, strolling toward his office. "Any news?"

Inside, ironically, he finally noticed the outside; walking to work, he had been too taken in avoiding the masses, keeping his head down. But now, looking through the window of the eighth floor, he finally saw the melancholy tone of grey that had taken to the sky. It was a grey that told a story, that promised something beyond, like a dirty window into another world. Would that world hold answers? Or only more questions to stump Kido's work?

"None, I am afraid," his assistant told him, with that perfectly practiced, perfectly reticent tone of his. "I have put the most recently updated case files on your desk."

As promised, he found the case files neatly stacked between Kido's notes and the pictures of his family. Updated, however, was something of a stretch – they reported nothing new at all, detailing only the same stagnant lack of progress that had marred the investigation for the last month.

Eight children. All missing within the last six weeks. No bodies, no signs of forced entry. No connection but that god-damn video game.

Kido collapsed into his chair.

He thought of Itsumi again, his own lost child, and empathised with the families. She was only twenty-three when the car crash took her, nearly five years ago; in fact, her twenty-eighth birthday was only around the corner. Almost thirty. Almost as old Kido himself, when she was born.

It seemed unfair. It _was_ unfair.

Hands over his eyes, and his mind cast back to the moment. He was sat in the back, Itsumi in the passenger seat as her boyfriend drove. She was laughing, looking over her shoulder, teasing him about being relegated to the back seat. Everything moved slowly. Light streamed in through the windscreen. Then the truck came.

 _Rap-rap-rap_

Kido's assistant knocking on the door dragged him back to the present reality. "Enter," he said, shortly.

The assistant entered and bowed. "Inspector, there are two people outside. They wish to speak with you."

The man from downstairs, Kido thought. " _Keimuati_?" He asked. Things were getting serious.

But the assistant shook his head. "No, sir. They aren't Japanese. From Britain, they say." He cleared his throat, and tugged at his tie. "The man's credentials appear in order. They say they are with the London police, with information concerning the missing children."

Kido's brow furrowed. Nonetheless, he said: "Send them in."

His assistant left, and two white people entered: a man and a woman. The man was tall, and handsome, with light stubble covering his jaw, the woman shorter, shyer. The man bowed, and, after a second, the girl followed suit.

Kido stood, and returned the gesture. The man wasted no time, reaching into his pocket and handing the detective his credentials. "Thank you for seeing us, Detective," he said. "My name is the Doctor, and this is my assistant, Elizabeth Darwin. We've come from Scotland Yard to talk with you."

"As I can see," Kido replied. The man's Japanese was remarkably perfect. The inspector raised an eyebrow. "Special branch."

"Er, yeah. That used to be funny."

Bewildered still, Kido invited them to sit. "My assistant tells me you have information, concerning the recent disappearance of eight children."

This time, Miss Darwin answered, her Japanese equally fluent as her partner's. "We think it might be nine children, Inspector. Two weeks ago, a girl disappeared in Britain, in much the same circumstances as what has been happening here."

Kido's heart skipped a beat. "How is that possible?" If there were some kind of conspiracy, some kind of international operation…how many children were gone?

"Her name was Meiko Saito. Nine years old, at the time of her disappearance. No sign of kidnapping of forced entry."

The Doctor took over. "Her parents were Japanese, living in Britain to manage a branch of their family's small business, but she was born and raised in the UK." The Doctor produced a file from his bag, and slid it across the desk. "Her parents died in a car crash."

More skipped heart beats. Perhaps I should call for an ambulance, the Inspector thought.

"It seems she had a copy of the same videogame connected to the disappearances in Tokyo."

"'The Secret of the Dark Yurei'?" Kido asked. "The game was never circulated outside of Japan."

"You're right, but Meiko had family still in Japan." Miss Darwin sniffed, and looked to her shoes before carrying on; a nervous habit, unbecoming of a high-ranking police officer. "An uncle, in distribution, who sent her a copy. One Nobusuke Saito, I believe you have him under charge for fraud."

"Yes. Yes that's true," lightbulbs ticked inside Kido's head. "His company was one of the main distributors of the game. We think there are a large number of copies in one of their warehouses, in downtown Tokyo, but we haven't a warrant to search the premises. Not yet, at any rate."

The Doctor stood and smoothed down his jacket. "Get one, Inspector. We have to move quickly."

Kido stood to meet him, not sure why he was deferring to the Doctor's authority, yet doing so all the same. "I believe I can get one, yes. Will you join us on the raid? How can we contact you?"

The Doctor handed him a piece of paper with a phone number – a strange string of numbers with an odd extension Kido didn't recognise, but nonetheless he accepted it. "Thank you," he said, and bowed.

The Doctor and Miss Darwin returned the courtesy, and went to leave. Miss Darwin lingered at the door, however, and said: "Thank you for hearing me-…us…Inspector."

One last time she looked to the floor, and left.

* * *

Two days passed, as Kido waited for his warrant. He was confident it would come through, but everything in this world took time…time the eight – now nine – missing children surely did not have.

 _Meiko Saito_. The name echoed inside his brain, bouncing around the walls of his skull. Now his failure seemed to reach halfway around the world. What was going on? Conspiracy? People trafficking? What terrible fate awaited these small lives.

He tried not to dwell, but as the hours dragged on it was impossible. Soon the name of Meiko began to turn back to Itsumi.

On the second day, the warrant arrived. Kido wasted no time in calling the Doctor. "That was quick," he had said, bizarrely, as if only a few minutes had passed since their last meeting. "Where shall we meet?"

He gave the Doctor the address, and a time in the evening.

Darkness fell on downtown Tokyo, and Kido arrived at the warehouse, ten armed officers at his back. He had wanted to play it safe – the belligerence of the distribution company in denying the police access had led the inspector to believe th3at there might be a troublesome amount of security. Yet when they arrived the warehouse seemed practically abandoned; all lights were out, the gates chained and barred, and days-old rain sliding from slimy plastic gutter, grim tears on the cladded windows.

The Doctor and Miss Darwin arrived a few minutes after the officers, on foot, and unarmed. Neither of them even wore a coat.

"We're not trained," Miss Darwin explained, with a sheepish smile, drawing a raised eyebrow from her companion. Kido remained incredulous, but nonetheless, continued with the operation.

One of the officers took a heavy bolt cutter to the chain holding the fenced gate together. With a heave, he snapped the steel, and thirteen of them filed through, towards the door of the building itself.

The Doctor and a few other officers went ahead, the Briton chatting absent-mindedly to the officer next to him. Kido deliberately fell in behind, flashlight pointed ahead of him, putting himself next to Miss Darwin.

"If you don't mind my saying, Miss Darwin," he said to her. "You seem rather anxious about this operation."

She sighed. "Please don't call me Miss Darwin. It makes me nervous. I'm not that important, honestly. Just call me Lizzie."

"Fair enough. Lizzie. So what is making you anxious, Lizzie?"

"I just want to get those children back, Inspector."

"So do we all. But you seem…a little invested, if I may say so. Is this personal for you, in some way?"

Lizzie sighed, indulging in her nervous tick once more. "You worked it out, Inspector. I knew Meiko. I'd like to find out what happened to her."

"I see. Were you a family friend?"

"Yeah, I guess you could say that."

"Understandable. And it explains how you are so proficient at Japanese."

Lizzie blinked at him, confused. "Oh, yeah!" she said suddenly, as if surprised by the language she was speaking. "Yeah… that's why I can speak Japanese." She laughed it off, unconvincingly.

They reached the door of the warehouse, again held in place by a thick chain, quickly dispatched by the bolt cutters, and all filed through into the dark, damp, dank building.

The warehouse was two stories, ostensibly at least – the floor above was a thin membrane of rusted iron, filled with holes and gapes, picked out one by one by the flashlights from below. The sound of creaking metal and stagnant drops water bounded around the reverberant space.

"Fan out," Kido instructed. "Slowly. Don't go upstairs until you've checked down here, please."

The officers did as they were told, points of light seeking into every corner. Kido went on his own searches, as did the Doctor and Lizzie, though Miss Darwin seemed to make a special effort to stay close to him.

Surely nothing hid the dark, Kido thought. No, it was not that kind of world. Yet all the same a strange presence hung over the warehouse, a strange…electricity in the air.

Itsumi?

A stupid thought. He banished it.

Though, he did wonder what she might say about all this. What advice would she give him? Would she have some special insight? She was young, perhaps she'd know something more about the missing children. Some intuition into their world.

No. Not that young, he had to remember. Kido looked over to Lizzie, her face a pale mask in the ghostly light of her torch. She and Itsumi, they were of an age. Perhaps.

The Inspector's foot brushed against something. Something heavy, that seemed to roll and loll against the impact, before snapping back into position, almost like…

"…A head," Kido said to himself, aloud. Slowly, he turned his flashlight downwards, praying to be wrong.

He was not.

By his foot was a huge, bald head. Thankfully, still attached to a huge body, dressed in a security outfit. The man was flat on his back, eyes clothes, mouth agape. In the light on the torch, he looked dangerously pale.

Lizzie was by him, apparently hearing his utterance. "Doctor!" she whispered over to him, and within a moment he was there, kneeling by the man on the floor, more officers following in a haze of light.

The Doctor inspected the body, living up to his moniker. "He's alive," the Doctor announced. "Just out cold. See those marks on his temples? The blue ones?" Kido couldn't see anything, but was given no time to say so. "An electrical pulse, right into his brain. He could've been out for hours, maybe even a day."

Kido turned. "Two of you, get this man to a hospital!" True to their training, two men came forward and – with trouble – grabbed the huge man and dragged him outside.

"What could have caused this?" Kido asked the Doctor. "A taser, perhaps?"

"Maybe," the Doctor answered. "But who is a better question." He seemed to laugh to himself.

"An intruder, perhaps?"

"But the place was completely sealed up, has been for days. Which means…"

"Which means what?" Kido was becoming impatient.

"Well, it suggests that the chaining up of the building was done by whoever decided to leave. Which further suggests that whatever knocked out this poor fellow…is still in here."

Slowly, the Doctor looked upwards, eyeing the rusting metal grille above him. "Are you feeling brave, kids?"

He dashed off, towards the red iron staircase. Even in dark, Kido picked him out, leaping upstairs two steps at a time.

Lizzie turned to him. "Yeah, he does that." And with that she went to follow him.

Kido huffed, and turned to the remaining eight men. "You men, upstairs, with me!"

Somehow, now standing on top of the iron grating, Kido felt the electrical presence even greater. There was no extra light up here, but, inexplicably, he saw better.

The Doctor was thirty feet ahead, kneeling before a large pile of what seemed to be boxes. Small, plastic boxes, coloured an off-grey – Kido's flashlight managed to pick out labels, coloured a deep black and blood red.

Game cartridges, he realised. The Secret of the Dark Yurei. He heard more footsteps behind him, officers clattering up the stairs to meet him, but he didn't turn, his mind focussed on the games before him.

"There's several hundreds of them," the Doctor was saying, examining a cartridge in his left hand. In his right, something whirred, a strange cylindrical instrument that he seemed to pass over the game. His flashlight stayed on the floor, gently rocking from one side to the other.

"They each seem to be holding a charge," he carried on to the dark. "Not electrical, it seems to act more like Artron energy. But I can't get a proper reading on it. If I didn't know better I'd say it's not from this universe…"

"What?" It was taking every ounce of politeness his mother had taught him to suppress the urge to kick the stupid white idiot up the backside. "What do you mean a charge? Like the kind that knocked out the man downstairs?"

The Doctor gave no answer, instead simply tossing the game cartridge in his hand aside, and grabbing new one to examine.

"That's _it!_ " Kido cried, throwing his flashlight to the ground with an incredible clatter. Everyone fell unambiguously silent, and turned to face the Inspector – even the Doctor. "I have suffered enough indignities today. A man is injured and I have no answers. You and your friend hijack my investigation, drag me down here to stare at plastic, start babbling on about charges and things in the dark! I've had _enough_. Why are you wasting my time like this? What are—"

"Inspector," the Doctor interrupted. There was a sudden stillness in his voice, and his eyes hovered beyond his shoulder.

"No! No, you're going to listen to me!"

"Honestly, inspector, I would love to, but…"

"But what?!" Kido noticed then: the warehouse was, gradually, becoming lighter. "What's going on? Is the power back on?"

No one answered, and when Kido looked them, all eyes were looking over his shoulder. So, he turned.  
Light was building in a space above the grille. A strange, flickering light, not natural and flowing as the water-like light of the sun, but artificial, square, each new section building upon last like the bricks of a house.

The light was clawing upwards, five feet, maybe more, a shoulder's width apart, flickering all the time. Kido watched, amazed; the colours were muted whites and greys and pinks, strange and two-dimensional, but expanding, taking up three dimensions with every flicker. At a shoulder's width, the blocks of light began to shrink, becoming more defined.

Robes. White robes, tied at the waist. "Impossible…" Kido said, breathlessly, to himself more than anyone else. "It's a person…"

"A ghost," one of the officers said behind him, though he barely heard him. "A demon!"

The colours were boldening further; Kido could see a blurred face of brown skin, long black hair tumbling down the creature's back, a v-shape around its neck. A female form, Kido realised.

Only seconds passed, but it felt like an age before the demon woman became recognisable. Light danced around it, branching out then convulsing inwards like the pixels of an old TV. Though it flickered from state to state, Kido could see the hard, cruel line of her lips, and the dark, malevolent eyes peering through the jittering veil.

Itsumi? It was an involuntary thought.

Then, the Yurei _screamed._

The creature thrust its arm in a wide, violent arc, and lightning sprung bright blue spheres.

All the slowed time of watching the monster form itself returned to Kido, and sudden flurry of events, compressed into such a short space he could not comprehend what was happening. There was light, and the sound of shockwaves, and the Inspector was flying through the air, floating without form, then bouncing across the grille, one, two, three, like a ragdoll, like a child's toy.

No pain. Not yet. Pain would come later.

Shouting now. Gunshots, too. The voices of officers, Lizzie screaming, the Doctor shouting orders. The Inspector's vision was darkened, spotty, but he could see lightning streaming above his head. People were running. Bodies lying on the floor, men being dragged down the stairs. All happening so quickly.

Kido looked to the creature. To the _Yurei_ , the monstrous video game villain come to life. And he saw.

He saw his daughter. She was stood there, surrounded in flickering anger. Back from the dead, or beyond the dead, at least.

Itsumi was haunting him. Haunting the whole world. It was an irrational fear he never realised he had, but there it was, a terror sprung from far inside his mind, right in front of him.

This is my fault, he realised. I let her down. Now she needs me to pay.

Something grabbed from behind, a hand locking his collar, shouting in his ear, though he could barely hear the words. He fought back. No! he screamed, but words never seemed to escape his throat. No! Leave me with my daughter!

Darkness again. Vision fading. The _yurei_ screamed and twisted and spat lightning, but never left the side of the plastic mountain. Guarding them, perhaps.

Oh, poor Itsumi…

Only spots of vision now, circles beginning to close. All sounds were gone. Itsumi's face swam before him, once so beautiful, now full of rage, snarling, flickering from one state to the next like a broken monitor. Cracking every-which-way, like the Inspector's heart.

He let the blackness take him.

* * *

It was Meiko. Lizzie knew it. She _saw_ it, looked into that thing's face and saw her friend from long ago. The _yurei_ , a smart and sad little girl transformed into a monster. She didn't know how; perhaps the game had sucked her in, transformed her, took her essence and projected the game's villain onto her. The Doctor would know. But it was Meiko. Lizzie was in no doubt.

Her head was between her knees, taking deep breaths, trying to calm herself. When she looked up, she could see the sun begin to rise, the first tendrils of sunlight touching the sky.

They were outside the warehouse, now. It has all happened so fast. A few men were injured, knocked out, Inspector Kido included, though none killed. Lizzie thanked god for that. Blue ambulance lights waxed and waned across the concrete and barbed wire. Doctors and medics rushed from person to person, bandages in hand, and the Doctor did the same, trying to help.

Lizzie sat away, and alone. She'd only get in the way. A few more deep breaths, and her head went back between her knees.

Five minutes past before the Doctor made his way to her. "Lizzie," he said, standing above her. She raised her head to look at him. "Are you okay?"

She was about to say, "Yeah, of course," but the words caught in her throat. This wasn't something she could lie about.

"No," she said, and then: "It was Meiko."

"Lizzie, I don't think it was—"

"No, _listen to me_. It was. I saw her myself."

"That thing, whatever it was, was just an apparition," the Doctor crouched down beside her, talking at her level. Talking down to me, Lizzie realised. "It looks like a _yurei_ , for whatever reason, drawing on the ideas projected onto the game. I haven't worked it out yet. But it wasn't a person, not Meiko or anyone else. It's just an anomaly of energy."

Anger bubbled up in her, spread through her chest and limbs like a strong drink. "No," she said, slowly, choosing each syllable carefully. "She was not an 'anomaly of energy'. I looked at her face and saw my friend. I. Saw. Her."

Lizzie stood before the Doctor could respond, putting her back to him. "Lizzie, I get you're upset," he was saying, still kneeling. "But you need to think rationally. That thing wasn't Meiko."

"How can you say that?" she span around to face him. "How can you say that when I know what I saw?"

"You think you saw her. That's what it is, it latches onto what you think you know, and makes you believe in it."

"You _just_ made that up, I can tell."

The Doctor hopped to his feet. "Lizzie, it looked like a fully-grown woman. Meiko was what, eight?"

"Nine."

"Nine, then. And not a _yurei_."

"But it transformed her, changed her into the game. That's what happened, she became part of the game!"

"Now who's just making things up?"

Lizzie pushed him. The Doctor barely moved, so she pushed him again, letting out a sob this time, forcing him to take a step back. "If you aren't going to listen to me, you aren't going to help me, are you?"

"I'm just trying to get through to you!"

It was enough, Lizzie realised. It was confirmation; if she wanted to save Meiko, she'd have to do it alone. She turned from the Doctor, and started to walk away from him.

It took him a few seconds to realise what she was doing. "Lizzie?" He started to come after her, though not quite running. He went to place a hand on her shoulder. "Lizzie…"

She swatted it away. "If you aren't going to help, then leave me alone."

"I can't just leave you here!"

"Then you best think of a way to save Meiko, Doctor." With that, she left him there, walking towards the bulk of Tokyo. She had no idea where she was going, or what she was going to do. Her heart felt heavy.

And so did her pocket. She felt the lump of plastic in there, the game cartridge she swiped from the pile in the warehouse, and, just maybe, felt her friend, too.

* * *

The gentle, ambient hum inside the TARDIS shattered like glass as the Doctor entered, slamming the wooden doors behind.

"Nonsense!" he cried to himself, marching towards the console. The ship seemed to whirr and warp in response to him. "They never listen. They never think! For such a rational species, they aren't exactly _reasonable_."

He flipped a lever, and the time rotor jumped to life, groaning upwards and downwards. Over the years, the Doctor had become so used to the sound that most of the time, he barely even heard it. Yet, sometimes, he could still detect a _tone_ in the voice of his oldest companion.

"Oh, don't be like that," he said to the machine, folding his arms. The TARDIS was in flight now (though, 'flight' wasn't a technically correct term), hurling through the time vortex. "I can find her again, easily. I wouldn't just leave her there. But it wasn't Meiko – I saw that thing too, it was a _grown woman_ , not a little girl. Or at least, it took the image of a woman."

He pushed away from the console, hand on his chin, contemplating his own logic. "Of course, there is a flaw in my argument, though he pains me to admit it," he spun dramatically. "I said Lizzie couldn't have seen what she said, yet…I reject it based on evidence of my eyes alone."

He hit his own head. "But it couldn't have been Meiko! No one else saw a girl. Everyone, _everyone there_ , saw the _yurei_."

It didn't make sense. He thought as much as he could, thinking of his own testimony, of Lizzie's, of everything said by all the officers. He thought of the charge held by the cartridges, the strange temporal energy that gave no sensible reading. The thoughts went round and round his head like a carousel, but no conclusion came to him.

"I told Lizzie to think rationally," he said aloud. "Maybe I was wrong. Maybe this isn't rational. I said, if I didn't know better, the energy didn't come from this universe. Maybe I'm a bloody idiot!"

He ran back to the console, pressing buttons, pulling levers, playing with the scanner. "Not from this universe. Not something that adheres to reason, not as we understand it. A whole different set of physical rules! Something brand new; I love this job!"

The scanners whizzed and spat numbers, but nothing made sense of the readings. "No, no, I need something I can read! If I can work out where this other reality is, how the _yurei_ is manifesting itself here, then maybe I can find the children."

But it was useless; only gibberish played upon the screen.

He slapped the stupid thing away, close to defeat. The Doctor sat – practically fell – on the floor, knees curled up to his chest. This trial was hardly the greatest he'd faced; he'd survived a Dalek prison camp, defeated the Master and her army of shades, even taken the fight to God himself. Yet this simple task avoided him. He kept thinking of all the lost children, all the families who'd never see their babies again. I let them down, said the voice in his skull.

No. No he couldn't give up. Not for those children, or those families, and most of all not for Lizzie. He made a promise, and who was the Doctor if not a promise to help?

Thinking rationally would not lead him to answer. Perhaps he had to _feel_ the solution, intuit where the _yurei_ came from and what it wanted, rather than deduce from evidence.

There was only one thing nearby that would give the Doctor the depth of feeling he needed.

Within a second he was up on his feet, running towards the blue wooden doors of the TARDIS, and opening them, so he could out in the swirling, endless, majestic view of the Time Vortex.

Even after centuries of adventuring, the wonder and the terror the Vortex engendered in the Time Lord was intoxicating. The whole thing shifted, second to second, entire light years swirling overhead like a passing wave. On moment, the tunnel of time was blue, the next red, then green; sometimes it seemed to look like angry clouds, others huge and beautiful splashes of watercolour paint.

The Doctor sat in the TARDIS doorway, legs dangling over the edge of the floor, into the expanse before him. The ship's shield encased him within a bubble, so he'd never truly touch the Vortex; to do that would mean being vaporised, and stretched across every point in space and time.

He thought about his whole life flowing above him. As long and wild as his time had been – longer than almost anyone else's – no doubt it was but one of the glittering clouds that wheeled about him, lost already in the mosaic of light, diffused into the rest of the universes. Everything was there; the Doctor's birth, his first day at the academy, the day he fled Gallifrey. The day I married Cioné, the day Iris was born. Their life together. He really felt something then.

But even the Time Vortex wasn't the extent of all creation. No, parallel and pocket and bubble universes all existed beyond this place, some similar to the Doctor's home, others wildly different. It was there the Doctor needed to focus, to stoke epiphany, to find knowledge beyond what was normally known.

He wondered what would become of other realities, after the war. The Time Lords maintained access to them, but if Gallifrey were to fall…

He shunned the thoughts as a distraction. But maybe a distraction was good? I don't know, he thought. I never had to patience to meditate before.

Meditating, that was it! No distractions, clear the mind, let the universe flow right over you.

He closed his eyes. Then opened his eyes. Then closed them again. It wasn't going well.

A little stillness crept over him, though. A tiny piece of tranquillity formed in the corner of his mind. Maybe it was enough, however small.

Something shimmered, far off in the Vortex. Was it just another glittering cloud of time, a distraction in the Doctor's mind? No, it was something else, and maybe…

The pieces fell together, forming the finished puzzle. "Yes!" the Doctor cried, punching the air. "Just what I was looking for!"

The Doctor leapt up and ran to the console, the wooden doors of the TARDIS closing behind him. He was pulling levers every-which-way, not _totally_ sure what he was doing, but the answer was in his head now, and that meant his trusted old ship could help him find it.

"I just need to find Lizzie," he was saying. "Explain to her what's going on. Tell her she was right, in a way." He flipped on the tracking screen; she couldn't have gone too far before the TARDIS could re-intercept with her timeline.

"That doesn't make sense," the Doctor hit the scanner, jolting the readings, but nothing changed. "She can't be _nowhere_! She has to be somewhere. But where?"

Then, it occurred to the Doctor – he knew exactly where she was.

* * *

Lizzie had walked for hours – three, four, she couldn't say – before she hit the busier side of Tokyo. Not quite the centre, she could see the towering skyscrapers in the distance, but these outskirts were busy enough with people and commuters and traffic.

Lizzie always wanted to visit Japan. The second year module on Japanese history was the best twelve weeks of her university life, and she could recite the entire _History of Japan_ YouTube video from scratch. Perhaps, in some subconscious way, she'd always been looking for Meiko.

She touched the plastic inside her pocket. Cheap, tasteless, imported stuff. 'Knock knock, it's the United States,' she almost said aloud, and grinned.

The grin faded as fatigue took hold of her, though. She was tired, she hadn't slept, she had walked too far…just two minutes rest, that's what she needed.

She wondered if the Doctor would find her. She felt like a little kid, storming off like that, virtually screaming ' _I hate you!'_ like some angry teenager, all the while hoping he would follow her.

After a few minutes of aimless wandering, a bench appeared in front of her, and she eagerly parked herself on it. People walked past her with their children and their dogs and their briefcases, seldom giving her so much a sideways glance. Lizzie wondered if they thought she was a tramp.

She fished the game cartridge out of her pocket again, becoming more used to the strange electrical tingle passing through her digits as she fingered it. The plastic was grey, the label hard to make out, a crudely painted woman in a white gown screeching out the title, _'Secret of the Dark Yurei'_. The title was in Japanese, Lizzie knew, but the TARDIS reformed the words in her mind so that she could understand. Perhaps that meant the Doctor was coming back after all, she thought.

Meiko was in her thoughts, too. Was she trapped in here? Was she spread across all the different cartridges all over world? That was a horrible thought, her childhood friend being spread so thin and far. No wonder she was angry.

But the Doctor's words echoed about her, too. Meiko was only a little girl, and the thing actualised by the game was clearly a woman. Or, at least, a monster in a woman's form.

But it was Meiko. Lizzie felt it. How could it not be?

She groaned aloud; all the thinking was making her head swim. Isn't the Doctor the one who's supposed to figure this out? She thought. I'm just supposed to ask questions and get rescued.

Her eyes closed. She didn't intend to sleep, just to shut out the rest of the world for a moment, find a little island of stillness so that, perhaps, things would become that tiny bit clearer.

A few seconds passed. Or, maybe a minute. Perhaps even several minutes. Lizzie opened her eyes, and the world had changed.

It was brighter. I must have slept, she thought. It must be midday by now. Yet the colours weren't more vibrant, instead seeming fuzzier, bleeding together in a dream-like haze. She rubbed her eyes with her knuckles, but it didn't clear.

"I'm going mad," she said aloud. Her voice sounded the same, at least. But everything else, that was different. The bench was no longer a bench, but a seat, an entirely ordinary plastic chair sprung from nowhere, plucked from a void, and before her was no longer the leafy Tokyo outskirts, but a table, plastic legs holding a frosted glass top.

There was a street beside her now. It was busy and bustling, smaller than a grand metropolis like Tokyo, but all the same people filed past at a considerable pace. All the scenes on the streets were written in English – not the translated English of the TARDIS, Lizzie knew, but genuinely English, her mother language. She was, somehow, back home.

Durham, she realised. Not home, back in Durham. Though maybe they were the same. The town was where she went to university, studying history, and she was sat outside a café she used to visit regularly.

This must be some could kind of memory, or flashback, she thought. But all she could manage to say out loud was, "Jesus Christ."

"Jesus Christ, what?" a voice said from behind her. A woman's voice, young, around the same age as Lizzie. She passed from behind her and took a seat opposite Lizzie, setting down two coffees, one for herself and for her friend. "Are you okay?" asked Meiko.

She was no longer a little girl, but grown up, with bright eyes that seemed to smile all by themselves. Her actual smile was wide too, almost a grin; she seemed to have the kind of face that smiled all the time.

"Lizzie?" the grown-up Meiko asked. "What's up?"

"Oh, erm," she wanted to bolt, to run away and throw up. But she also wanted to stay, and hug Meiko so tight she might never let go. The more she looked at her, the more real she became, the more sense it made that she was sitting there. "Nothing, honestly. Just…you know."

Meiko nodded, knowingly, reassuringly. "Drink your coffee, it'll liven you up a bit," she said with a mischievous grin. She grabbed her own drink enthusiastically, drinking it without paying any mind to how hot it was, not like Lizzie, who sipped slowly so not to burn her tongue. She was always the bravest of us, Lizzie remembered from her days at the Children's Home.

Meiko had grown _tall_ , and, if Lizzie were honest with herself…pretty beautiful. Her face was a pleasing oval shape, with a nose at its centre that scrunched when she smiled, all framed by a head of dark hair, almost black.

Her wrists grabbed Lizzie's attention the most, though. On her left was a tattoo, three pixelated hearts alongside each other. One was empty, showing only Meiko's skin instead the black outline. The other two were filled with red. Lizzie didn't know much about videogames, but still, she recognised the lives system from _Legend of Zelda._ Not that much has changed then, she thought.

Her other wrist, though, was wrapped in a clean white bandage.

Meiko spied her looking. "Yeah, I guess I need a new tattoo, huh?" Lizzie tried to formulate a response, but managed only to trip over a string of syllables, before defaulting to her nervous habit of sniffing and looking at her shoes. "Don't worry!" Meiko said, reassuring smile still on her face, putting her coffee back on the table. Even in adulthood she seemed the same, forever trying to take care of everyone around her, and neglecting herself in the process it seemed. "Tell you what," she carried on. "Let's finish these and go for a wander, just to inject a little excitement into the morning. What do you say?"

"O-okay," Lizzie replied. "That sounds great." It might give me time to work what on earth has happened, too, she thought.

But the time never came. Suddenly, they were away from the café, and the sun had moved further in the sky, but the strange, unreal haze settled over the world remained. Now Lizzie and Meiko stood in a park, some kind of elevated arboretum, leaning against a stone railing, looking out to the rest of Durham.

"How did we…?" Lizzie looked around her. It was like she'd teleported, flashed forward in time. This isn't my world, she realised then. This is somewhere else. The game has transported me.

Meiko looked at her. "We walked here, Lizzie. You really must be knackered."

"Yeah…yeah I guess so…"

"You didn't have to stay up in the hospital all night, you know," Meiko said. Her smiled had faded now, and she was staring out over the city blankly. "I would've been okay."

Lizzie had no memories of staying in any hospital, but that would've been impossible to explain. Instead, she only said: "I wasn't just going to leave you, was I?"

Meiko's smile returned after that. "There you go!" Lizzie said, easing herself into the banter. "I much prefer to look at that smile."

"Yeah, me too," Meiko turned to look at her. "You're lucky though. You're pretty even when you're not smiling."

"I don't know if that's lucky," Meiko was to Lizzie's left, with her right, bandaged wrist resting next to her. Gently, Lizzie touched it, running her thumb across the linen, and Meiko turned it over, taking Lizzie's hand in her own.

"Thank you. Honestly, Lizzie, thank you for staying with me. It means the world."

"You really don't have to thank me. It's just the right thing."

"Still," Meiko sighed. "It can be hard, when you feel so lost."

"Yeah, I know," Things were starting to make sense in Lizzie's head. The game, it had taken her to some kind of…unreal reality. A projected world, showing her what Meiko was going through. Or, at least, what Lizzie _thought_ she was going through. "But I'll help you find your way back."

"Yeah." Meiko's face really was beautiful, a thousand tiny expressions playing across her eyes and eyebrows and lips. She still looked like her friend from all those years ago, transformed into everything Lizzie had wished she'd seen her become. It was overwhelming.

She went to do the thing, sniffing anxiously and looking down. But as she lowered her chin, Meiko's finger caught it, gently lifting her face back up. She wasn't leaning on the railing anymore, but standing straight and level with Lizzie.

Then they kissed. It wasn't anything special, only a light meeting of lips, but enough. It felt like someone running a battery across Lizzie's mouth.

Maybe I can just stay here, Lizzie thought. Real or not, I could get used to it.

They pulled away, Meiko running her thumb across Lizzie's jawline. It only lasted a second, but felt like hours.

Then the noise came, and deep wheezing, groaning and thrumming and stirring the air all around them. Meiko didn't even seem to notice it, but Lizzie recognised the sound immediately: the TARDIS. She looked over her shoulder to see the blue wooden box materialise in the park, perhaps fifty meters behind her.

He did find me. Maybe she should've been surprised that the Doctor managed to blunder his way here, but somehow, she wasn't.

"I'm going to go get a drink or something, real quick," Lizzie said airily. "Do you want something?"

Meiko shrugged. "I dunno, maybe a coke or something? Just anything with caffeine, really."

"Alright then. Back in a sec." She turned away, turning to walk towards the TARDIS, without _too much_ urgency. Behind her Meiko had turned back to gazing over Durham.

The TARDIS doors creeped open, and the Doctor stepped out into the park. The unreal haze of this world didn't seem to touch him; he was much more defined against the background, bolder in colour. Harsher, in some ways.

"I've worked it out," he said to her, as she arrived at the TARDIS. "You weren't wrong. Not in a way. I wanted to say sorry." He looked over her shoulder, spying Meiko. "Is that…?"

Lizzie didn't need him to finish. "Yeah, I think so," she looked over too. "But this world…it's not real, is it? I'd worked that much out, at least. That's not my Meiko, the one we've been looking for."

The Doctor shook his head. "That's a reflection of the real Meiko, I think. She's trapped in the world the game links to. Part of it, like we're part of ours. But I think she's drawn from you, mostly. This whole world is." He looked around him, at the park, and looked impressed that his friend had managed to create all this.  
"So, explain. Where are we? If this isn't our world, the one the game connects to?"

"It's like…we're standing on an ember. When the two worlds touched, ours and the games, it created sparks, a little offshoot of heat and light and dimensional energy. A whole new ember world. But they can't last. Have you noticed time moving faster here? The space between events being shorter?"

Lizzie nodded.

"Embers cool and darken," the Doctor explained. "This whole world is fading. Soon it'll be gone, not even a ripple of dimensional energy left."

"That's sad."

"I suppose. But what created this place still exists. And is still worth fighting for, Lizzie."

Meiko was still looking out, oblivious to what was being said behind her. No, not Meiko, Lizzie had to remind herself. Just an ember. Still, it was hard to watch such a pretty ember die.

"She'll fade too," she found herself saying. "Like she was never here. She was never real."

"She'll stay in your mind. And the real Meiko can still be found."

"Will she remember me? The, the ember Meiko, I mean. Will I have just, disappeared from her life? Will she spend her time looking for me?"

"No. No, everything about your universe came here with you. Once you leave, it will to. If she even remains, she won't remember."

That was a tiny mercy, at least. The haze was getting stronger now, and she could barely see the city beyond the blur. The world was fading. "She was never real," she repeated. It was all she could think to say.

"It's real enough for her. And even if it's only in your head… that doesn't make it unreal to you," the Doctor said, tenderly. "Come on. Your friend is waiting for you."

Lizzie nodded. I found Meiko once, she thought, and I can do it again.

The Doctor opened the TARDIS doors wide, and she stepped inside.

* * *

The door clicked behind her, and Lizzie was back in reality. A strange kind of reality, she had to admit; one where a centuries old alien danced about the inside of his blue-box time machine, which happened to be bigger on the inside. Still, if her time with the Doctor had taught her anything, just because something was strange, didn't mean it was any less true.

I've just learned the opposite, too, she thought, sadness at leaving the ember world behind welling up inside her. But she didn't dwell on it. No, her friend Meiko was still alive, and to let her down just wouldn't do.

She turned to the Doctor. "So, Meiko's trapped in this other world. So, we can just go and get her, right?"

The Doctor twirled a knob on the console, and laughed cynically. "If only things were so easy," he turned to Lizzie. "You took a copy of the game from the warehouse, right? Pass it here."

Lizzie reached into her pocket, touching the plastic and feeling the charge tingle against her fingers. She threw it underarm to the Time Lord, who caught it perfectly.

"I was able to reach the ember world because you were already there. I was tracking you, so the TARDIS could follow your trace." He tapped the time rotor; praising it, perhaps. "But I don't have that for the main world. We need a link to follow, and inroad to the other universe. And then…I can use this!"

Out of nowhere, the Doctor pulled out some strange contraction; it was long and flared like a trumpet, made of green plastic, with blinking lights and copper wires spiralling all along it. "That looks suspiciously like a vuvuzela," Lizzie said, once it her.

"Yeah, something else I accidentally invented early. I think I was drinking tequila out of this one in 1966." He shook his head, clearing the memory. "Anyway, _this_ is a proper home-made quantum eraser! Point it at the _yurei_ 's universe and it'll collapse the wavefunction holding our two realities together. Once that happens, everything there from our universe will be spat back home. We'll get the children back."

"Back and alive?"

The Doctor shrugged, not in a dismissive way, but as a suggestion that he genuinely didn't know. "I hope so," he said, and that was enough.

"Okay," Lizzie nodded, new determination welling inside her. "Where do we need to go?"

"Back to the warehouse!" the Doctor shouted, and with his free hand set the time rotor working. The room filled with that familiar old wheezing sound, spiriting them to exactly where they needed to be.

* * *

Night had come again, and Kido barely paid attention to the road he was driving on. Reckless, he knew, but soon enough it wouldn't matter. Light streamed past his windows in bands of white and blue and red, not moving themselves, simply holding the impression of the movement of something else. The whole universe was like that, Kido reasoned; the moments of our lives are only ghosts, tiny glimpses of the fading light, stretching from time's start to time's end.

The Inspector had awoken in the hospital. Mild concussion, the doctors had claimed, but Kido had discharged himself immediately, heading home to his flat to sleep instead. It wouldn't do to spend his last night in a hospital ward, garish and unfriendly. No, it had to be his flat; simple and small as it was, it was his, and all his precious memories of Itsumi surrounded him there.

The warehouse was waiting for him. That's where he would find his daughter, beautiful, laughing Itsumi, transformed into the vengeful spirit, trapped inside that demon game. When he slept, he dreamed of her; sweet dreams, in truth, of her happy childhood days, but they all ended the same way.

He'd left his apartment quickly – on waking, he'd found lingering too painful. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, threw on the same close, and loaded his gun. He locked the door behind him with barely a look back, lest the doubt in his heart grew too great to bear. That couldn't happen; nine children were relying on him, as well as his daughter.

He threw the gun on the passenger seat, and started driving.

It was a strange feeling, to be endowed with purpose for the first time in years. Being a father without a child was a terrible thing, endless days filled with grief that refused to go away. But now, Kido felt closer to his daughter than in years, even if that feeling was to come with a terrible price.

It will be worth it, he thought. For myself, for Itsumi, for all those lost children.

The warehouse loomed ahead of him, looking more tall and twisted and terrible than before. He'd arrived quicker than he thought he would – how long had he been dreaming on the road?

The place was cordoned off with a yellow police line, so Kido slowed as he approached. A uniformed officer came up to his car window, rapping on the glass roughly. The Inspector lowered it in response, and handed over his ID.

The officer ran his flashlight across the identity papers, scanning left and right. Seconds passed that felt like hours, and Kido feared they wouldn't let him pass. Then the officer handed him the badge back.

"Apologies, Inspector Kido," he said, the very picture of contrition. "We weren't expecting anyone. Are you sure you're okay to work?"

"I'm fine," he replied, probably too quickly. "Just something I need to check out. Won't take long."

"Of course, Inspector," the officer lifted the police cordon above the roof of Kido's car, and he drove on, the two cops sharing a nod as he passed.

The first part was done. The hard part, at least physically. Only my strength stands in the way now, Kido thought.

He pulled up his car not far from the door of the warehouse. No one had gone in since the incident with the _yurei_ , but the building remained open, easily accessible to anyone important enough to cross the police line.

Engine off, seatbelt undone, gun in his coat pocket. Kido closed the door behind him quietly and, checking over his shoulder to make sure no-one was looking, stole away inside the building.

It was pitch black inside, just as before, and Kido had to put his hand on the wall and follow it round, else risk being lost in the inner darkness. Above him he could hear the _drip drip drip_ of the broken gutter, stagnant water plopping from the rusted iron grate above him. That was his goal, his destiny. It took nearly ten minutes, but soon enough the Inspector brushed against the stairwell. The metal scraped his skin, but it didn't matter; he made his way up.

As before, upstairs was lighter – darkness still reigned, wheeled into every corner so Kido felt trapped in a strange, lightless dimension, but all the same there was an eerie luminosity emanating from the pile of game cartridges. He could seem them clearly.

"Itsumi," he called out. He was confident no one outside could hear him. No one needed to get hurt. Except for me, he thought. "Sweetheart, I'm here. Where are you?"

He approached the pile of games. 'The Secret of the Dark Yurei', it had been called. Kido never knew what people saw in games like those, but then, they weren't made for him. It wasn't his world; the place he was made to occupy was shrinking with every moment.

Closer, and closer, and the warehouse was becoming brighter. Just as before, the light began to manifest, a shifting curtain of light, transforming into bricks of colour, building upwards, one on top of the other on top of the other on top of the other, until, at last, the form of the _yurei_ was complete.

Though still, it blurred with every second, white and pink and grey and blue playing up and down it's body. It looked like the _yurei_ of folklore, for certain: a pale young woman in a white robe, hands limp by her side. The face didn't stay still long enough for features or expression to be clear, but she was angry, of that much Kido was certain.

"Itsumi," he said again, as close as her dare come without provoking an attack. Guilt still weighed on his mind for the men injured the last time he taken liberties here. "I'm sorry. I let you down. I should have protected you. I was your father, and I let my little girl down. You have every right to be angry with me. I don't know how it is you've returned, or how you've come to connect yourself to that game. Even if you could explain yourself to me, I won't ask you to. But the children…the children you've taken. They must be returned. They've done nothing wrong, they have families who miss them. That's why I'm here. You can have me, and have your peace, but you must let the children go. Is that fair?"

Itsumi didn't answer. The only response was a continuous flickering of light, like pixels bursting and branching out all around her.

"I hope you can hear me, Itsumi," he continued, taking one more step towards her. She flickered with anger. "But I can feel you, in there."

He sat now, crossed legged before the _yurei_ his daughter had become. Her blurring face watched his every move, unseen eyes studying him. And out from his pocket, slowly, so slowly, he drew his gun.

She gave no reaction; a gun couldn't hurt a spirit, they both new that. It wasn't intended to harm her, though.

"I'll do it. I'm not afraid to die. And I'm not afraid of you. You're my daughter, how could I be? I failed to protect you. I won't hide from that shame. But I have to know the children will be returned. Please, in whatever way you can, tell me that the children will go home."

Nothing. Only the angry flickering answered, persisting through the darkness.

Kido nodded. Perhaps she simply couldn't answer; only rage was left of his sweet daughter, swallowing her voice and laugh and thoughts. That was painful enough, but he couldn't let it stop him.

He flicked the safety off his gun, and slid his finger onto the trigger. No dwelling, no hesitation, he decided. That would only make things worse.

Inspector Kido breathed deep, and the barrel of the pistol met with the flesh under his chin.

Then came the noise. Ghastly, at first, something that filled his ears and scraped at the inside of his skull. It was a groaning, a wheezing, the laboured breathing of a huge, mechanical lung. But after one or two rasps, the noise softened, the pain and awe replaced with an odd familiarity.

There was light, as well, rising and fading from behind the Inspector. He turned to look, and saw a strange box take shape, simply materialising out from thin air – blue, it was, and strangely luminous, emitting its own soft light to cancel out the harshness of the _yurei_.

Wood, Kido realised. It's made of wood. A big blue box, taller than a man, and wide enough to hold three, was appearing from thin air right in front of him. On its roof, a lamp flashed on and off, as if signalling its comings, and beneath that was written in bold, golden characters, ' _Police Public Call Box'_.

The police have arrived, Kido thought, and almost laughed.

The _yurei_ that was Itsumi hissed in response to the box, light crackling from its face, but it made no move to attack the foreign object.

The doors opened, spilling yet more white light into the room, and a man stepped out from the box.

"Inspector Kido!" the Doctor said. He was holding some strange, trumpet-like device in his hand. Lizzie stepped out behind him. "What are you doing here?"

"I…That box? What is it?"

He looked over his shoulder. "It's a police box. Do you not have them over there?"

"Not…really…"

The Doctor shrugged. "I'll get one sent over to you. They're pretty handy."

Lizzie was more serious. "Doctor, he's got a gun."

"So he has," he replied, the humour dying in his voice. "What are you planning on doing, Inspector?"

Kido's throat was dry. He ran his thumb up and down the cold metal of the gun, grease rubbing off on his skin. "This is something I must do, Doctor," he turned to look. "That thing is my daughter. I feel it. She died, you see, in a car accident some years ago. I let her down, and now she's wroth. I must pay my debt to Itsumi, and then she will let go of her anger, and, I hope, the children."

The Doctor was quiet for a moment. "You see, Lizzie," he said after a moment. "When you look into the ember, you see things you recognise. Shapes of faces, shadows of people you lost. Just like you thought you saw Meiko, he sees his daughter."

"What are you talking about? That is my daughter, I can see her right in front of me."

"How do you know? She's blurring with every second."

"She's the right age. Twenty-three when she died. Her twenty-eighth will be here, soon."

"A grown woman. She had her own life, Inspector. She wasn't a child anymore." As the Doctor said it, the words struck a chord within him. Parenthood was hard - giving a child their freedom was harder.

"She was still _my child!_ " Kido roared. "Why else would she take the children?!"

"Kido, I need you to listen," the Doctor approached, crouching towards him, and again the _yurei_ hissed. "I know how you feel, truly, I do - but listen to me. Nothing has been taking the children. The games are somehow to linked to another reality. I don't know how, maybe some kind of cosmic entanglement, or they hold the charge from a bolt of alien lightning. It doesn't matter, in the end.

"The children who touched the game fell from our dimension into the one the games share in. That _yurei_ , it isn't anyone's daughter. It's just an ember of dimensional energy, the children trying to reach back to our world. All their fear and anxiety, lashing out."

Kido barely understood. "If it is all that you say, nothing but a freak of science…why take the form of a spirit?"

The Doctor shook his head. "I don't know. There's a lot I don't think I'll ever work out. Maybe it comes from a universe where emotion and spirituality govern the laws, over maths and physics. Or maybe not. But…I'm sorry, Inspector. I truly am. But that thing is not your daughter. It's not a ghost, or a spectre, or a vengeful spirit. And whether you believe me or not, I have to stop you from doing this."

"No, Doctor," Kido was tired of all this. He wanted to bring an end. "I will not have anyone else shoulder my burden. Step away now, and let me do this."

Dismay played on the other man's face. Suddenly weary of the gun, he retreated back to his box, taking up next to a concerned-looking Lizzie.

I didn't expect an audience for this, he thought. It would take him more to time to prepare, to be ready to leave the world and join Itsumi with the Doctor and Lizzie watching. But, still, he had a duty.

"Inspector?" This time, it was Lizzie speaking up, and making her way over.

He sighed. "I appreciate you trying, Miss Darwin. Truly I do. But you will not dissuade me."

She didn't seem to hear that, as she crouched by him. The _yurei_ made no hostile noises this time, Kido noticed. "How old did you say your daughter would be, again?"

"Twenty-three when she died. Twenty-eight next month."

"A similar age to me, then?"

"I suppose so."

Lizzie nodded, and looked over to Itsumi. "When I first saw that, I thought it was the person I was looking for, too," she said. "Meiko, her name is. She's only nine, though."

"A little young to be the spirit, then."

"I suppose," she turned back to him. "Meiko and I, we were in the same children's home. I grew up there, but she never got the chance."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"It's okay, not your fault. It's no one's fault, that's what the Doctor showed me. If you let him, he can show you too."

"I wish he could, Lizzie. But it's too late. I look at her and I _know_ what I see."

"I felt that too. I was I _so sure_ of what I was seeing. But remember… thoughts can manifest themselves in dark ways. And just because they're thoughts, doesn't make them any less worthwhile. I can't imagine how much you miss your daughter. But like the Doctor said, she was a grown woman. And if she was anything like you, I doubt she'd become a vengeful spirit that steals children."

Lizzie held out her palm, hand-up. "I'm not asking you to believe me, not right now. Just trust us for two minutes. That's all. Two minutes."

Two minutes. Kido looked up to the _yurei_ , to the thing that was his daughter, but, perhaps wasn't. I was so sure, he thought. But there was a tiny glimmer of doubt in his mind. Two minutes. Surely, he owed this pair two minutes?

His thumb clicked the safety on, and he rested the gun in Lizzie's hand. "Thank you," she said, before turning to her companion. "Doctor?"

"Okay," the man said. He stepped forward, holding out the strange trumpet device in front of him like a gun. The _yurei_ was becoming more agitated, thrashing, spitting sparks. Kido wanted to bolt and run, but Lizzie's hand on his arm kept him in place. "Let's defeat the boss."

The trumpet device _thrummed_ , and a ripple went through the air. The _yurei_ didn't even seem to register it, only continuing to thrash angrily at the Doctor, and for a moment Kido feared nothing would happen.

But then, the _yurei_ began to glow, brighter and brighter, lighting up like a candle. Kido had to shield his eyes to stop them burning. The light persisted for felt like hours, only ever getting brighter. It's never going to die, is it? The Inspector thought.

But, eventually, it did, the whiteness shrinking away from the darkness. First, it retreated back into the shape of the spirit, but then turned smaller still, the size and shape of a child. It split like some microscopic organism, the original spitting out two new lights, and then each of those creating more, until…

Nine, Kido realised. Nine shapes.

At last, the light died, leaving the only illumination that which spilled from the Doctor's box. The _yurei_ was gone, it's anger disappeared with the light, and in its place stood nine dazed and confused looking children.

One looked at him, a young boy, no more than eleven. "Sir?" he asked, as polite as a Japanese child could possibly be. "What happened? Where are we?"

" _Meiko!_ " Lizzie shouted before he could answer. She was on her feet, running towards a girl at the back, embracing her in the tightest hug Kido had even seen. The girl tried to respond, but her head was buried in Lizzie's shoulder.

Unbidden, tears crept down the Inspector's face. After all these months of stress and guilt, it was, finally, over.

I hope I made you proud, Itsumi, he thought.

* * *

The awe on Meiko's face was infectious, and through her Lizzie felt as though she too were experiencing the TARDIS for the first time. The little girl wandered around and around the console, analysing each button and leave, her eyes scanning up and down along with the time rotor.

"It's incredible," she said. "I believe you, it's a spaceship. Can it really travel in time?"

"You bet!" the Doctor answered, always pleased to find a new admirer. "Anywhere and everywhere. The Paris Commune, Ancient Greece, or so far into the future that humankind has touched every star in the sky. Absolutely anything is possible."

Meiko turned her eyes to Lizzie. "So…you really are her? The Lizzie I lived with? All grown up?"

"Yep, I'm me. Really me."

"Wow, you went and found a time-traveller to help me," Meiko was smiling now, bright and grateful. "I never thought I'd have a friend like that."

"You would've done the same, I'm sure."

"So…" Meiko asked. "Does that mean I can go home? Back to the UK?"

The Doctor shook his head. "I'm sorry Meiko, but as far as the universe knows you disappeared from Britain all that time ago. To take you back would be a paradox." She seemed to understand. "But don't worry, I've contacted UNIT's Tokyo branch and they're going to look after you. They have experience with kids who've had…weird things happen to them."

"Raised by government alien fighters? Not many girls could claim that."

Lizzie had to laugh. Even after all of this – years and years of hurt, from Lizzie's point of view – her friend from the children's home hadn't lost her spirit. "Or…" she'd never have forgiven herself if she didn't ask. "You could always come with us? Like the Doctor says, it's the most amazing thing."

Meiko contemplated for a moment, but then shook her head. "Maybe another time. But you've lived your life to this point already, Lizzie. You've earned it. I've still got all that to come." She straightened her back. "Come back for me, one day, and I'll be ready."

The Doctor grinned. "You're a smart girl, Meiko, I like you," he hopped up to the console, flicked some switches, and the ship landed with a soft _thud_. "Right, just outside the door is UNIT Tokyo. Tell them I sent you, and they should give you anything you want."

"Anything?"

"Anything."

Meiko laughed. "Ice cream for dinner, then," and with that, she turned for the door. She gave Lizzie one last smile as she left, and a little wave, then she was gone, the TARDIS doors closing softly behind her.

"So, all sorted, then," the Doctor said, after a beat. "You saved her life, Lizzie."

"Did I? Seems you did all the hard work." Her mind went back to her storming off, to her adventure in the other world, to the other Meiko, replaced by the child who had just left, and how her world had died like a cooling cinder.

"I'd never have worked it out without your connection to Meiko. Besides!" he cried, and reached under the console. He grabbed something round and rolled up, and threw it to his companion: a newspaper. "Take a look."

It was the _Yomiuri Shimbun_ , dated the day after they'd left Tokyo. _'Children Found in Miracle Incident! Mystery Remains; Police Praised'_.

She read the headline twice more. It made her feel weird. "So this was all…pre-destined? We were always going to find those children? This headline…it was already written?"

The Doctor shook his head. "No. No, your actions wrote that headline. By making the choice, you forged the future. There are other possible futures, sure. Places where you were never brave enough to do the right thing. But those places are just sparks and embers, brought into being by you. By the work you do."

Lizzie ran her fingers across the words of the headline. The ink felt dry, and yet, if the Doctor were to be believed, it had only been freshly printed. By me, of all people, she thought. A future made, and chosen.

She wondered if she should say something profound. But somehow, she knew it wouldn't quite be appreciated. Instead, she simply rolled the paper back up. Onto the next future, she meant to say, but it seemed the Doctor had already picked that up, and was busy working on the TARDIS, making ready to fly as far away as possible.


	12. 510 Together Alone

**PROLOGUE**

It had been a good day. A quiet day, a calm day. Which for most people isn't an extraordinary thing, but then most people didn't travel through a universe of time and space with the Doctor from Gallifrey.

A good day for Lizzie and the Doctor usually meant no monsters, no planet or civilization facing extinction, no running for their lives or fighting for the lives of others.

But this day had been a particularly good day because the Doctor had taken Lizzie to visit some of her favourite places in her own time and in her own country: they'd stood in silence before the mystery of Stonehenge and for once the Doctor didn't try to tell her it wasn't a mystery, that he knew the whole story behind it. They'd walked the Cobb in Lyme Regis and looked out across the English Channel to France, in silence, the ocean waves crashing up and over the great stone breakwater in explosive majesty. They'd visited the home of Jane Austen but again in Lizzie's time, not in Austen's, and the Doctor refrained from mentioning the times he had spent with Miss Jane in the past.

Today they'd been tourists and all was beautiful.

Then, as it does all too frequently when you travel with the Doctor, everything went sideways.

Everything changed in a footstep and a key turned in a lock, when Lizzie unlocked and stepped through the door of the TARDIS, and it slammed shut before the Doctor could follow her in.

She whirled around in surprise and called out to him. "Doctor!? Are you OK?"

"Yes Lizzie, I am … OK," he responded while patting his arms and legs in a quick survey of any possible damage or missing parts. That was how firmly it had closed, inches from his body. "I'm right here, Lizzie, on the other side of the door. All of me. In one piece."

"I can barely hear you, Doctor."

"I can't hear YOU very well either…" He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and attempted to magnify the sound of their voices so they could be heard more clearly through the door.

"How's that?"

"Better, Doctor."

"Just a minute, while I get out my own key."

Silence followed, for several very long seconds.

"Doctor? What's wrong?"

"My key isn't working, Lizzie. For some reason, it won't even slide into the lock … I'll scan the door and the TARDIS and see what's going on."

Lizzie could hear the shrill buzz of his sonic screwdriver, and then silence again.

"Doctor?"

"Everything registers normal but the door will not open for me for some reason. Can you try it from your side? Maybe just give it a pull, really hard, and see what happens."

Lizzie had already begun pulling after she'd heard the sonic's whirr. The door was having none of it and didn't even wiggle with all her effort. "It's not budging. Has this happened before?"

"Not to me, no, at least not that I can remember." Silence again. "Look, Lizzie, give me a moment."

She could hear him talking, saying something, softly, like "What's wrong old girl?"

"Is there someone out there with you?"

"No…sort of…well, not exactly..."

Lizzie had heard the Doctor "talking" to the TARDIS like this before, more than once actually, usually at the console though, not to the door, not outside, like this. She'd always found it a bit unsettling but she figured that at least in part, it was just a way for the Doctor to think out loud rather than simply conversing with his ship. But now he was speaking louder, addressing her, Lizzie, very clearly.

"Lizzie, I need your help. Walk over to the console and try the door switch…." But his words were drowned out by the loud BONG of the cloister bell, an unmistakable warning of danger, a sound emanating from deep inside the TARDIS.

"Doctor? The cloister bell, that's not good, is it?"

Instead of hearing the Doctor, Lizzie heard a new voice, a woman's voice, loudly and clearly, and audible even above the cloister bell.

 _"_ Don't listen to him, Lizzie." It said. He's an impostor. That's why I locked him out. _"  
_  
"What? Who are you? _Where_ are you?"

"I am the TARDIS. You know me. I am all around yo _u._ I take you and the **real** Doctor through time and space. I take care of both of you. I will protect you from the impostor. I will find the real Doctor."

"DOCTOR! The TARDIS is talking! She's never talked before, has she? Can you hear her? She says you are an imposter."

"She's lying, Lizzie."

"NO, I am NOT LYING," the TARDIS voice replied most emphatically.

"Why would she lie?" continued Lizzie.

"I have no idea."

And then the Cloister bell stopped ringing in mid BONG and all was silent.

 **THE EIGHTH DOCTOR ADVENTURES**

 **SERIES 5 - EPISODE 10**

 **TOGETHER ALONE**

 **WRITTEN BY CLARA LAURINDA**

 **Inside the TARDIS Console Room  
**  
"Doctor?" said Lizzie out loud, but she was thinking something else entirely: _Is he really the Doctor? Why would the TARDIS lie? For that matter, why is the TARDIS suddenly talking? IS the voice that of the TARDIS and she IS lying? And I've_ _ **never**_ _heard the cloister bell stop so suddenly._ Lizzie's mind was racing.

 **Outside the TARDIS** **Door  
**  
"Lizzie?" The Doctor's mind is racing too: _Why is the TARDIS talking, all of a sudden, and not to me, but to Lizzie, and for that matter, why is she lying to Lizzie about me? Is that really Lizzie talking to me? I can't hear the TARDIS speaking, so is Lizzie the one who is lying? Is SHE the imposter?  
_  
 **Inside the TARDIS Console Room  
**  
Lizzie is now standing next to the control console, self-consciously patting the console and whispering to it, "Are you OK?"

A strange thing happened: the TARDIS said out loud, with great irritation, "Of course I am OK!" while at the same time Lizzie heard a distinct and familiar groaning sound resonating from deep within the console which trembled with the sound, as if in complete contradiction of what the voice had just said. Then there was a sudden and painful ringing and buzzing noise in her ear, like tinnitus, although there was no loud noise triggering it since the cloister bell had stopped sounding and the TARDIS voice wasn't talking, and there was nothing in the room that was actually ringing or buzzing.

"Doctor? Are you using your sonic?" she shouted towards the closed door.

 **Outside the TARDIS Door  
**  
"No Lizzie. Why?" he shouted back.

 **Inside the TARDIS Console Room  
**  
"Because there was a sound in my ear just then, a high-pitched ringing and buzzing sound, but there was silence in here otherwise."

 **Outside the TARDIS Door  
**  
The Doctor straightened up in sudden recognition of something familiar, like a sense of _déjà vu, a_ nd that triggered an idea and then a whole line of thought ... and a plan. The Doctor shouted back a rather enigmatic response, especially for anyone or anything other than Lizzie who might be listening: "Lizzie! Do you remember the incident on Synaxta? And… _how_ we prevented the planet's disintegration?!"

 **Inside the TARDIS Console Room  
**  
"Yes… Yes I do!" Lizzie shouted back as she too snapped upright, in full realization, like a mirror image of the Doctor's movements outside.

This was no impostor she was talking to. He had just identified himself to her by shouting about something specific, the HOW, he emphasized, that only they knew about, while at the same time setting a plan of action in motion. _He has a plan already!_ He was reminding her of how they'd established a telepathic link between them so they could communicate in the thundering noise of the surrounding mayhem. Only she and he knew about this and perhaps the real, unspeaking TARDIS knew too. And he was telling Lizzie to help him open the link between them NOW. They could communicate in apparent silence, "heard" only by each other and no-one or nothing else.

 **TARDIS Outside and TARDIS Inside, Two Minds and Places Linked Telepathically  
**  
 _You know by now Lizzie that I am not an impostor and I know you aren't an impostor, or we wouldn't be able to do this or know that we could, right?  
_  
 _Yes._ _ **And**_ _, I know that the TARDIS never talks out loud. You two have an odd way of communicating but never out loud, so I know it isn't her speaking. But Doctor…  
_  
 _Yes, Lizzie?  
_  
 _There was something else that has convinced me that the TARDIS voice is lying. I gave the TARDIS console one of your little pats, and in a soft whisper, asked if she was OK. And at the very time that the so-called TARDIS voice loudly proclaimed that OF COURSE SHE WAS OK, I believe the TARDIS herself communicated to me in her usual language of groans, sighs and shudders, that she was indeed NOT OK. That convinced me. The voice is the impostor, the liar, not you or the TARDIS.  
_  
In confirmation of all this, the booming TARDIS voice spoke up just then and proved that there was indeed a someone or something that was unaware of their unspoken communication, because it filled what it perceived as silence, with a loud and arch proclamation in answer to the last words spoken: **"Yes! I remember it better than you, 'Doctor', because I was actually there and I helped the** _ **real**_ **Doctor escape."  
**  
The impostor had now revealed her/itself, and it wasn't the Doctor. Or the TARDIS.

 _But Doctor,_ Lizzie's thoughts resumed, _WHAT is really going ON, then?_ She knew he knew and now was the time he must share that knowledge.

 _Ah well, that's going to take quite a few minutes to explain so you have to make some sort of convincing excuse to the "Talking TARDIS" that you need some quiet time alone in your room so that your mind will be clear and you can listen to "her" plan on what to do about the impostor Doctor. Do it better than I just did, please Lizzie, or we're doomed. That way, we can communicate silently without you standing in front of "her" quiet as a glazed-eyed stump.  
_  
 _Yes, but I don't think I've ever stood glazed-eyed like a stump, even as a quiet child.  
_  
 _Are you laughing at me Lizzie?_ If a thought could smile, this one would indeed.

 _Yes Doctor. You can be very eloquent when you talk science and time vortexes and reversing the polarity but your descriptions of people…  
_  
 _Are hilarious?  
_  
 _Yes.  
_  
 _Well at least I've got you laughing on the inside…  
_  
 _A pun, Doctor?_ Lizzie could hear him chuckling out loud, even through the closed door. But it stopped abruptly and the Doctor's thoughts grew serious again, and urgent, as he realized his chuckling might have been overheard.

 _Is she saying anything? Because you_ _ **are**_ _just standing there like a…  
_  
 _No sounds at all Doctor. Not even when you laughed. All is quiet here. So… here goes!  
_  
"Hello?" Lizzie asked, not sure where to direct her voice, since the Talking TARDIS voice echoed in her ear as if it were coming from everywhere and nowhere.

"Yes, dear?" Lizzie's thoughts in response to this appalling false familiarity were inaudible, luckily, or the game would have been over before it had really begun.  
 _Lizzie, stay focussed!  
_  
 _I know Doctor, I know, but the voice's false caring makes me feel like being sick and as my boss once said, I am not very good at being diplomatic…you know that.  
_  
 _That's not true Lizzie. Focus and you'll be fine!  
_  
"I really do appreciate you protecting me from this impostor, "Lizzie said, sounding as concerned as she could, "But do you really think you can find the real Doctor? Can we rescue him and protect him too?"

"I'm scanning for him…" _Which is odd,_ thought Lizzie, _because I know your scanner isn't on and the real TARDIS should know I would notice that if…_  
 _Lizzie! LOOK like you are listening to her, don't let your focus wander!  
_  
"…but all I know," continued the TARDIS voice, is that he isn't outside my door or inside me anywhere either. I will keep scanning though, and … you can trust me to keep you safe while I keep searching."

 _Oh, sure I can…  
_  
 _Lizzie!  
_  
"As a matter of fact, dear, why don't you go and lie down in your room while I continue searching and while I try to find out who the impostor Doctor really is and what he's trying to do? You look rather pale, my dear."

 _I wonder why she wants you out of the console room.  
_  
 _Doctor, you are distracting me. Let me handle this.  
_  
 _OK, sorry.  
_  
"That's very kind of you," Lizzie responded to the voice. "I think I'll do that. I _am_ feeling a bit odd and tired." Lizzie tried to sound as sincere as possible, drawing on her years of humouring the tea room regulars in her hometown of Dunsworth. Then the Doctor's voice cut in as if on cue, as he shouted through the door to reinforce their charade: "Lizzie! Don't listen to her! She's lying! It's me! I **am** the Doctor. Don't leave me out here!"

 **"Oh, SHUT UP Impostor Doctor!"** roared the very un-ladylike TARDIS voice. **"We will WIN this time!"** The TARDIS voice went silent, realizing it had said a little too much.

"We?" asked Lizzie?

"You and me, I meant, dear."

"But what did you mean by 'We will win this time?"

"I…I don't really know…I just got carried away." A brief silence. "Didn't you say you needed to lie down, dear?"

"Yes" said Lizzie and she headed towards the doorway to the corridor that led to her room. "And maybe you should take a little rest too, perhaps?"

 _Lizzie don't push it. No sarcasm. Get out of there and to your room before you blow your cover like "she" did.  
_  
"Perhaps you're right, dear. I will take a brief break before I resume my search for the Doctor and my investigation into the impostor."

Under all these words, Lizzie heard a sad sigh come from the console. Lizzie was certain It was the TARDIS herself, hanging on in (almost) silence. Lizzie wished the TARDIS could read her thoughts and the Doctor's and be reassured. _But then maybe she can and is, and the sigh is telling me to get on with it!_ And down the corridor she went, to her room, slowly (since she was supposed to be tired) but with hidden determination.

 **TARDIS Outside and Inside, Two Minds Linked Telepathically, in Lizzie's Room  
**  
The TARDIS voice was silent now, but Lizzie was certain she was being listened to and wisely said nothing out loud, although her thoughts were far from quiet. The Doctor's thoughts were still as well when she opened her door and surveyed her personal TARDIS space: a small room decorated with several strings of twinkling fairy lights on the walls and ceilings, to remind her of the stars she often observed in awe in the TARDIS observatory and sailed past on their journeys; the same stars she had observed in wonder as a child in the care home and her estate flat as an adult.

There was another reminder of her life in Dunsworth too: on the wall next to her bed, a holographic window had been hung like a mirror just above her bed, but that functioned as a window looking out on familiar earth scenes and seasons she could view from her bed. With a press of a button she could make it seem as if she were looking out a window through the leafy green branches of trees in the summer and brightly coloured autumn leaves in the fall, or at a hilly wintery landscape as it was being lightly dusted by a night time snowfall. There were many scenes to choose from, but her favourite view was of the pond of her childhood, with the comforting old tree nearby, from which hung the rope swing she used to over the pond with in her quiet, private moments away from the care home. The window had been a gift from Cioné and Iris.

Her narrow bed was small and covered in two (sometimes three!) soft, thick comforters and three fluffy pillows—a comforting place to sink into and relax and read and, now especially, a place to think and to "talk" with the Doctor. The bed was extra long to accommodate another treasured gift, this one from the Doctor: a Victorian lap desk or "slope" which was sturdy, box-like but portable, made from walnut and trimmed in shining brass, with a matching brass key that opened the box to reveal a fold out velvet- lined writing area, sloped, as the name described, and a storage compartment for pencils and pens and beloved favourite book or the one she was currently reading. She loved to stretch her toes and feel the reassuring wooden presence, her key to whatever world she was reading about and to whomever she was writing a letter that she sometimes actually completed and sent (with some difficulty, since most of the places she visited with the Doctor did not have mailboxes); of course, the most frequent recipient was Maggie who took the strange postmarks and stamps in her stride.

On the wall opposite the "window," was a mirror that reflected the images and increased the illusion of light coming through the window, brightening the room considerably; like the lap desk, it was framed in ornately sculpted brass. Next to the bed was and a small night table holding a Tiffany-style lamp and 2 photographs: one of Lizzie holding a new-born Iris and another of the Doctor, Cioné and teenaged Iris.

After apparently allowing her a few moments to collect herself, the Doctor's thoughts now mingled with hers.

 _Lizzie?  
_  
 _Yes, Doctor? Are you OK by the way? Everything has been happening so fast, sorry I didn't ask earlier.  
_  
 _Yes, I am fine-ish, alone out here with my thoughts. And yours.  
_  
 _Witty, Doctor, but…what's next? What's the plan?  
_  
 _Remember when you told me you heard a buzzing-ringing sound, and you wondered if it was my sonic?  
_  
 _Yes.  
_  
 _Well, when you said that, I realized who we are dealing with and possibly why. It's a lifeform called the Wispins. They actually live here on Earth, in the ears of humans, in a usually mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship with you. They live on sound, on the sound waves of what you hear and they they help keep your ears healthy, protecting you from the impact of excessive noise, and lubricating your ears with ear wax... They can also create sound, like the buzzing and ringing you mentioned.  
_  
If a mind could recoil in shock, hers most certainly did now.

 _Erm, Doctor, you are disturbing me just a little. You take something everyday and…complicate it…make it quite frightening.  
_  
 _Not me Lizzie. Reality does that.  
_  
 _You are telling me that me that the reality is that when I hear buzzing or ringing or other noises in my ears, it's caused by an alien parasite, as is the wax that keeps the ears "healthy"?  
_  
 _They aren't actually parasites because the relationship is usually beneficial to both you and them. And, they aren't not alien, just not human. They live on Earth with you… and have since the beginning.  
_  
 _They live IN us, you said. Not with us like a next door neighbour, Doctor.  
_  
 _Yes. In you. But just in your ears.  
_  
 _Hmmmmm. But what's gone wrong, Doctor?  
_  
 _Well, since they've existed for a very long time, there has been some evolution in their society…  
_  
 _They have a society?  
_  
 _Yes…. with a group emerging called Rippins. The problem is that they want to do more than just coexist with and help humans. They want to control what they hear, they want to influence human life, to take it over in fact. They want what amounts to a fully parasitic relationship where they will take what they need and not worry about damaging or even destroying their human hosts in the process.  
_  
Lizzie had been sitting on her bed through all this but now she swung her legs up and sank into her comforters and pillows and tried to clear her head.  
 _Lizzie?  
_  
 _This is a lot to take in Doctor. You're unnerving me a bit to say the least. Alien…I mean non-human creatures in my ears_ _ **and**_ _a power struggle?  
_  
 _Yes, between the Wispins and Rippins and now between the Rippins and humans. There's a lot more, sorry, Lizzie, but you need to know. For several centuries now there has been a slow-burn revolution going on with the benign, symbiotic Wispins and the parasitic Rippins struggling for power. I have spoken out over the centuries about the need for reconciliation and reunification and the continuation of a peaceful, mutually beneficial Wispin/human symbiosis, but the Rippins have become increasingly aggressive and it would appear, are coming after me now, through you and the TARDIS, to stop me and my attempts at a peaceful resolution.  
_  
 _So, Doctor, the voice that says she is the voice of the TARDIS is actually a Rippin? And they are using their control of sound to muzzle the cloister bell and keep you out of the TARDIS? Am I not just in the way? Not their target?  
_  
 _Yes, I think that's correct, Lizzie. You are only a target in the sense that you are human and can be affected by their manipulation of sound and because you are close to me and a way to get at me.  
_  
 _But if they live in human ears, how are they able to control the cloister bell or… does it have ears?  
_  
 _That's what concerns me. They may have developed the ability to leave the human body and use their sound powers outside of the human body. I don't know. If it's a new evolution, it is a dangerous one. It's also possible that they have just muted your human ability to hear the cloister bell ringing. It could be as simple as that. But it's still dangerous.  
_  
 _You mean the bell could still be ringing but I am being kept from hearing it?  
_  
 _Yes.  
_  
 _But I can still hear the sounds of the TARDIS, her sighs and shuddering. They haven't screened those out.  
_  
 _They may not know that those sounds are communication Lizzie. They may think those are just machine sounds.  
_  
 _You've used the words think and know. That means they are sentient beings with plans and goals and even emotions and intelligence.  
_  
 _Yes.  
_  
 _And some of them are ruthless and aggressive against you because they want to take control of human life and they know you want to stop them.  
_  
 _Yes.  
_  
 _So…what's the plan?  
_  
 _You mean do I have a plan? Yes of course. It's already started. And…it involves you.  
_  
 _I got that. So...what is it, exactly, then, or even in general?  
_  
The Doctor's thoughts went silent.

 **BANG BANG BANG BANG!  
**  
 _Doctor? What was that!  
_  
 **BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG! "Let me in! I know who you are and you're not going to stop me! You know very well I am the real Doctor and that's why you've shut me out!" BANG BANG BANG BANG!  
**  
 _It's me Lizzie. I've been quiet for too long and they might suspect I'm up to something, because they know I don't give up easily, so I am stirring the pot.  
_  
And then there was the booming response of the Talking TARDIS: " **LIES Doctor! We…I …don't believe you! Go away while I find the REAL Doctor!"  
**  
 **BANBANGBANGBANGBANG! "You KNOW I'm NOT lying and I'm NOT going anywhere!"** The Doctor shouted one last parting shot and then resumed his thought conversation with Lizzie.

 _I needed to buy us more time because there is one more important backstory you need to know. A bit of a LONG backstory.  
_  
 _Well, I'm all ea …thoughts, Doctor_. Lizzie smiled and switched thoughts quickly, to fit the urgent reality and to sidestep a flat out mental pun. S _o go ahead, please.  
_  
 _Ha! That's it Lizzie! Hang onto your sense of humour, it'll keep us calm and focussed.  
_  
 _I learned that from you, Doctor.  
_  
 _Thanks. OK, here it is. In my fifth incarnation, my sonic screwdriver was destroyed by the Terileptils, when their activities led to the Great Fire of London. Another long story. No time now. Anyway, I didn't make a replacement and I made it known that I had sworn off using a sonic until my present incarnation…BUT… in my Sixth incarnation I…. well the TARDIS and I, created a new one, but I kept it secret. And it had a new capability: it could work in total silence. Silent sound.  
_  
 _Why would you do that?  
_  
 _It was because of the Wispin/Rippin conflict which had really hotted up at that time and I needed a means of secretly monitoring their activities in order to observe and anticipate any action by the Rippins that would lead to their basically taking over all of human existence or destroying it. That's how bad it had gotten.  
_  
 _OK… but why would they fight so hard to stop you if they were simply worried about being monitored. Is there something you aren't allowing me to read in your thoughts? I sense there is more to it.  
_  
 _Rumours got around that my sonic could kill them, wipe them off the face of the earth.  
_  
 _Could it? CAN it?  
_  
 _Not the way I was using it, I had no intention of destruction, just nudging them them away from their aggressive behaviour towards Wispins and humans, cause them to return to their symbiotic origins or move out of human ears.  
_  
 _How would they survive?  
_  
 _In other mammalian beings on earth and on other planets with humanoid lifeforms… with ears.  
_  
Lizzie suppressed a snicker, clamping her hand over her mouth. _It had sounded funny but surely was not.  
_  
 _In any event, I created and another sonic while I maintained the lie that I had no sonic. And reinforced this by never using it. I hid it, so the Rippins wouldn't find it and use it in their fight against the Wispins and against me… In my seventh incarnation, I continued the lie and never used my sonic. The sonic I have now is a different one.  
_  
 _Hid it…_ _ **where**_ _, Doctor?  
_  
 _It's hidden in.…  
_  
 _My room Doctor? My own private space that's supposed to be separate from your life?_ She looked at the pictures of herself and the Doctor, Cioné and Iris, all clustered together on the bedside table and realized the obvious: there was no escape really.

 _Where, Doctor?_ And then she figured it out: Wooden box, brass key….

 _It's in my genuine Victorian lap desk?! With all the compartments. I thought it was a gift?  
_  
 _It was and is. It's yours Lizzie, but it also holds the sixth Doctor's sonic screwdriver.  
_  
Lizzie was not impressed. She blocked her thoughts from the Doctor. Lizzie then pulled the desk onto her lap and turned the brass key that was sitting upright in the desk lock. With relative ease, she located the extra compartment by pressing gently on a piece of wood under the book she had been reading, and pulled out the sonic everyone thought never existed. She pressed it; it was silent, although it's tip glowed with a yellow light….. and re-established her thought link with the Doctor.

 _How do I know it's working?  
_  
 _I test it regularly.  
_  
 _You what? We need to talk, Doctor, about personal space… when all this is over…  
_  
She pressed the button again and it's tip glowed warmly in her bedroom for all of three seconds when…

A scream of **TRAITOR!** filled her ears as the TARDIS voice began fighting back against the pressures of the silent waves of the secret sonic… and then there was a catastrophically loud BONNNNNG! from the cloister bell—the Rippins had released their mute control over it and it rang painfully and catastrophically throughout the TARDIS, but especially in her room, where the sonic exploded in her hand.

 _Doctor!  
_  
 **Outside the TARDIS Door  
**  
 _Lizzie? LIZZIE! What's happening?_ And then the telepathic link was severed for whatever reason. Likely because Lizzie was under siege and focussing on the battle at hand.

Now he was alone again, on the outside of the TARDIS, and Lizzie was on her own inside the TARDIS, in her special private space, fighting for her life and for the future of humankind. On Earth and throughout in the populated universe.

 **Inside the TARDIS, Lizzie's Room  
**  
Lizzie could no longer "hear" the Doctor's thoughts. The telepathic link seemed severed or maybe she just wasn't focussed on it anymore, and she wondered and worried whether she had shouted his name out loud or in her thoughts. She didn't know, but she knew it didn't matter because 'the game was afoot' as Sherlock would say! The fight was on!

Everything was happening so fast. There was a high-pitched whirring in her ears and the cloister bell started bonging manically and the TARDIS voice was screaming epithets and angry threats and chanting: TRAITORTRAITORTRAITOR! Lizzie couldn't hear anything but the Rippins painful noises and the escalating loudness and speed of BONG BONG BONG of the cloister bell that were using as a weapon. Thinking was impossible too; the Doctor's thoughts were pushed to the background as she struggled to fight the noises in her ears and head and mind. She looked in Cioné's window, a shimmering white snow scape at this moment, and in the window's reflection, she could see tiny trickles of blood flowing from her ears. She swung around and looked in the mirror on the other wall and saw the blood clearly.

That's when she decided to fight back, to fight sound with sound, and to do it on her own, and began shouting out loud, "SO! YOU WANT A WAR? A WAR OF SOUND? **WELL…YOU'VE GOT IT! AND I DON'T NEED ANY SONIC SCREWDRIVER!** "

She took the deepest breath she had ever taken in her life and let it rip: a thirty second mind-bending ear shattering scream from the very bottom of her soul.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa **aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAEEEEEAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!  
**  
All the noises in her ears stopped. The cloister bell went silent; the Tardis voice stopped hurling insults. She felt a gentle flutter in her ears and the blood stopped flowing. The Wispins were still there, hard at work, peacefully helping. But the Rippins' auditory violence came to a halt.

Lizzie lay down on her bed again, at first gasping for breath and then slowly sinking deeply into the comforters and pillows, feeling with her toes for the familiar presence of the wooden lap desk. But it wasn't there. It was on the floor near the bedside table, still open, her book having spilled out onto the floor beside it…a reminder of the start of her battle with the Rippins.

 _Are the Rippins dead Doctor?  
_  
She had thought the telepathic link would have resumed by now, but there was only silence, followed shortly thereafter by soft footsteps and a gentle knock on her opened door, and the Doctor was by her side.

"No, just stunned, chastised, and gone," he replied aloud to her thoughts. "There was a massive gush of air as the TARDIS door opened to let me in. Possibly the Rippins were rushing out to live elsewhere but I think they got the message and won't cause anymore harm, at least I hope they got that point. And, maybe part of the whooshing sound and movement of air was their relinquishing the door they had been holding shut in some way with their sound skills. I don't know. But what I DO know, Lizzie, is that…to be honest…you were brilliant, amazingly brilliant and smart and strong. I never knew you had that scream in you!" he chuckled and looked both in awe and ever so slightly afraid of her.

"Neither did I Doctor, neither did I!" and she laughed softly and sleepily in relief and amazement, sinking further into the comforters on her bed as the Doctor watched her fall asleep in exhaustion and relief.

"You're a superstar, Lizzie. A supernova! You've saved the world."

 **TARDIS Console Room, Several Hours Later  
**  
Lizzie quietly entered the console room and joined a puzzled Doctor as he looked at the TARDIS scanner in concern.

"What's up, D…."

"Don't say it, or your nickname will be Bugs Bunny from now on," he smiled.

"I've never called you Doc, before," she smiled and "Now I never will, apparently! But, seriously, what is worrying you?"

"Same thing that was worrying me the night we met. Dimensional shifts."

"What about them?"

"Well the Wispin/Rippin conflict had been going on for a few hundred years and why did it all suddenly come to a head now, here, and with you in the middle of it?"

"You said I wasn't the target, you were."

"Yes, I did say that, and I don't think you WERE the target…of the Rippins… but the scanner indicates unmistakable signs of a dimensional shift inside the TARDIS during all of this. And the readings in your room go through the roof. For some unknown reason, you do seem to be present whenever these shift readings occur."

"It's a mystery, then?"

"Yes, Lizzie, it is indeed. It is a mystery."


	13. 511 The Tick of a Grandfather Clock

**PROLOGUE**

 _Saturday, 30th September, 1837_

 _It is, as I write this now, 30 minutes past 10 of the clock. The manor is silent. More silent than it has ever been before in my many days working here as the butler._  
 _I always believed that one day, I would recount my many years of service to the Dun family in some form of published memoirs, hence the diary I have been recording for the entire 43 years I have worked for them, starting off as a footman, and climbing the ranks until I reached butler. It was, as butler, that I presided over the pinnacle of the Dun family and their popularity. It is also as butler, that I have presided over the fall of such a family._

 _It also seems, that as butler, I have presided over a great and old house that is at the centre of the end of all time._

 _It is quite a chilling statement, even more so to my own person, as I glance back over the words I have just written. But I tell no lies, nor do I exaggerate. For it was today, Saturday, 23rd of the month of September, year-o-lord 1837, that I discovered that this manor I have worked at for so many years is at the centre of the end of all things. I keep the faith as well as any other man, and yet, I did not believe I would be at the centre of the stories told during the book of Revelation. It appears that I was dreadfully wrong._

 _Therefore, I see this as a very important tale to recount – not just for my memoirs, but as a tale of the end of time. I shall begin – as I believe this story will be read independently to the rest of my diaries, I shall provide some context to the family, and to my life, as we proceed through the tale._

 _Lord Dun, ever since the death of his wife, Lady Dun, and the marriage of his daughters to other worthy houses, has taken quite a turn for the worst._

 _He is quite mad.  
_  
 _The Duns were once one of the most prestigious families in all of England. They were respected, and it was an honour to not just serve them, but to head the workers serving them, and to have a close, working relationship with Lord Dun. He was a powerful, kindly lord – far from the sort you find in the works of dramatists and playwrights._

 _Though, the premature death of Lady Dun, a fair and happy woman, broke the heart of her husband. Lord Dun was a changed man from that day on, and he retreated into a cruel and nasty fellow. The only reason I dare write such things about him now, is that he is not sane enough to find them, nor sane enough to understand them. Therefore, I believe I am quite safe to write about his Lordship in such a way._

 _His Lordship can see ghosts._

 _Fantasies, one may say. But he has seen them for a great many years. And word has got out – and the people do not find the same respect for him as they once used to. It is because of this, that our household has shrunk. Once, we were a large group of staff. Now, there is just myself, and the cook._

 _At night, Lord Dun would scream. He'd cry of the ghosts, how they were coming for him, and how they were coming for us all._

 _The other day, it all became too much._

 _I decided to enlist the help of some ghost hunters_.

 **THE EIGHTH DOCTOR ADVENTURES**

 **SERIES 5 - EPISODE 11**

 **THE TICK OF A GRANDFATHER CLOCK**

 **WRITTEN BY ED GOUNDREY-SMITH**

How was Lizzie to tell someone something, that she couldn't even tell herself?

Surely that was harder than trying to tell someone the impossible? Because at least when you were telling someone the impossible, you had already accepted the impossible thing in your own head. But if there was something very real, that wouldn't sink into your mind, then surely that was even harder to communicate?

There was a thing.

Something in her mind, and she knew exactly what it was. She was telling herself, over and over, and although she knew it, it just wouldn't sink in. She couldn't accept it, no matter how hard she tried. It was bothering her constantly, as if she had her mind clamped down by some heavy chain, and she couldn't shake it off.

What was worse, was that she had been in this situation for many years. Lizzie had known the thing since she was a teenager, because that's when it had started to strike. And ever since it had struck, it hadn't let go – and ever since then she had been trying to make herself accept the truth. And although she was well aware of the truth, it just wasn't… _there_. It wasn't fitting into her brain, as if the puzzle were so nearly complete, and yet the one remaining piece was the wrong size and shape to fit in its spot.

Lizzie nodded in agreement, and slumped back in her chair. She was in the TARDIS library, in the spot she so loved by the window looking out into space. The lamp was not its usual warm self, however – Lizzie had upped the brightness so it seemed more like an interrogation. However, there were no clear answers coming. Instead, the thoughts that she mused over then, would make no sense to anyone, let alone herself. It was all just gibberish, spilling through her mind, and because of that constant spin-cycle of rubbish in her head, she couldn't do anything – she could barely do anything for more than five minutes without being distracted by the loose ends, the nothing-words, and that incessant need to somehow string them together.

She knew now, however, that the time was now. The stringing together would happen soon, and she decided that she needed to tell the _thing_ to someone, because perhaps that would help it to solidify in her head. Maggie, of course, was already certain of it, and had tried to get something done about it for the few years she could, and had tried to get Lizzie to do something about it in the years she couldn't. However, provision for dealing with the thing had been dreadful, and when it came to Lizzie dealing with it herself, she had refused, her acceptance of it still not crystallised.

But she was sick of the thing, and the way it hurt her every day. She was sick of everything it had made her do, and of the guilt she'd felt because of those things. Lizzie Darwin had to deal with it, and she decided that to do that, she would need to tell her best friend.

It was time to tell the Doctor.

A few hours later, the sounds of _Xanadu_ echoed around the TARDIS - not long ago the Doctor had had a new set of speakers installed, and ever since then he'd been subjected to Lizzie's taste in music.

Lizzie was sat on the battered old leather seat, her legs balanced up on the console. She wore a slightly hideous floral shirt that she'd taken a fancy to in some backstreet-summer-shirt-shop on a distant world somewhere, and circular, Harry Potter-esque sunglasses were balanced on her nose, her eyes peering over the rims. Peering over the rims, of course, at him. As she was sat there, her heart was pounding in her chest, and her palms were sweaty, and she felt as if she needed to vomit.

She was petrified. It's not as if Lizzie was scared of telling him, because she knew that the Doctor would understand. Or at least, she hoped he would (although she was quite hopeful that the small fragment of doubt was merely her being anxious). The sheer terror that bubbled within her was, she deduced, the fear that telling him would cause her to accept herself – and there was very little more terrifying than that.

The Doctor had promised her a beach. A beach at night! Beaches were too hot and too noisy and too crowded and Lizzie, for what it was worth, hated them. But beaches at night - that was a completely different story. Somehow, the time of day could make a great difference as to whether they were actually bearable or not. While a crowded tourist-y beach in the middle of a boiling hot summer's day was the worst thing in the entire universe ever, beaches at night were beautiful. There was something so calming about them, and Lizzie always felt content – and at that moment, Lizzie needed somewhere to feel content. Although she wasn't sure that even a beach at night, which could normally sooth her no matter what state she was in, would be able to do anything about her current condition.

Even so, the Doctor's promise was appealing – a really, really good one! On the edge of a planet on the edge of a solar system on the edge of a universe - from the shore, one could look out over the edge of nothingness, and the stars shone even brighter, and occasionally, if everything in the universe was perfectly balanced, one could see another universe there, glimmering in the darkness, where billions of billions of billions and more billions of people were living their lives. But as she thought of the universe being perfectly balanced, all it brought her back to was the imbalance of her mind, and how that would poison all of those stars.

Until the Doctor had told them they'd found something more exciting to do.

Lizzie probably should've been disappointed, but she wasn't. She'd rather save the beach for a day when she didn't feel awful, and was sure that her mind wouldn't be all over the place. "Okay."

There was a brief silence and the Doctor looked at her, a guilty look on his face. "It's not okay, is it?" he said, as he played about with some lever on the TARDIS console to take them to wherever they were going to go instead of the beach-at-the-edge-of-the-universe.

"Nope. It's fine," she smiled, taking her legs down from the console, and folding up her sunglasses. And the Doctor could see she was being honest.

"I promise that this is really important."

"What's happened?" she asked, walking over to the console and leaning over opposite him.

The Doctor reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a crisp, white envelope. There was a stamped, ink seal on it. She looked at it, waiting for him to continue.

"It's a letter."

"... I can see that."

"Someone has managed to post something to the TARDIS!"

Lizzie hadn't ever thought about whether there was a postal service in space, nor whether the TARDIS had a letterbox. She assumed that it didn't, because how would one post the letters? Fly really close to the box and lean out the window and put them through? Probably not.

"Can I…?" she asked, reaching over for the letter. He gave it to her, and she unfolded it.

 _Dear Doctor,_

 _Friday 29th September 1837_

 _I am writing to you on behalf of Lord Dun, current holder of the title and of the Dun estate. It will be of no surprise to you, considering his Lordship's mental state, that I have resorted to asking for such help, but it appears I have no choice._

 _I do not know who you are. In fact, it is the most ridiculous thing of me to do, to possibly ask for your assistance, for we know that the supernatural is not real, and there is nothing that you can be, but for a farce._

 _However, I assure you it is not._

 _We require a paranormal investigator, effective-immediately. You came recommended to me. They said you would not judge me for asking for such help, nor would you judge his Lordship. They said you were not a liar, nor will you deceive me._

 _They said you could help._

 _There are ghosts at the manor. They wake his Lordship in the night. They terrify him. They say he is quite mad, but these spirits just make his madness ever the more volatile._

 _You will, of course, be paid a great sum, for your services, and for your silence._

 _Yours sincerely_

 _Robert Carson_

 _Butler_

Lizzie handed the letter back to the Doctor, who pocketed it again. It was, to be fair, quite a difficult prospect to resist. A butler from the 19th century who had somehow managed to post a letter to the TARDIS about ghosts haunting a mad old man? Sounded pretty cool. And hell, perhaps someone madder than her would make her feel about herself (she knew she was disgustingly selfish, and at that moment, she hated herself even more).

"What's interesting," Lizzie observed, deciding to play at detective instead of worrying. "Is that he himself doesn't believe in ghosts."

The Doctor grabbed his coat, and walked towards the doors.

"You're too good at this."

When the Doctor pushed open the doors, they were met with a great lashing storm. He grabbed his umbrella and opened it, and the two of them stepped out into the rain.

They had arrived at the bottom of a long, long, gravel driveway, stretching for what seemed like forever ahead of them. At the far end, was a great, big, 'one day I'll be owned by the National Trust', stately home. When Lizzie turned around, she saw massive wrought-iron gates looming above her. On the other side, there was a cobbled road, winding down into what seemed like a quaint little village. The village was obscured in the mist and the rain, though.

Autumn was here, it seemed. They began their trek down the driveway towards the big house. Old oak trees lined the path, and they had started to shed their leaves for the winter. Many of them were a mixture of sunshine-oranges and yellows and burgundies and brand-new greens of nature and hope and freshness – greens that weren't new anymore, because the summer was over. In fact, the newness had grown old now. Finally, it had settled down. Every time a gust of wind blew, as well as throwing rainwater in their faces, one or two of the leaves would fly from their branches, off into wherever the wind would take them. There was a melancholy to the world, and as the season of death crawled on Lizzie couldn't help but feel especially dejected by it. Wherever she looked, she just saw the bleakness and the greyness, as if the life had somehow been… sucked out.

As they approached the house (though 'approached' makes it sound as if they were any closer – due to the sheer length of the driveway, they were not), they could hear the wind singing with the chimneys on top of the house. There were a great many chimneys, but it was a very big house – there were probably more fireplaces in there than Lizzie had seen in her entire life. As they got closer, the mist began to clear, just a little bit – there were windows as well. Lots and lots of windows. Except, white curtains were draped across the inside of all of them, and nobody could see in. Which also meant nobody could see out. It looked like an old-fashioned house from her time, one that nobody had touched or been in for so many years.

"Do you believe in ghosts?" Lizzie asked the Doctor as they walked, watching the droplets fall sadly off the rim of the umbrella in front of them.

"Yes. Normally I don't, but perhaps in this incarnation, I've finally seen the light."

"Yeah…"

"Do you?" the Doctor asked her.

She didn't respond, because that question was a whole different and complicated kettle of fish. Instead, she pretended to be looking at the old man who stood in one of the upstairs windows of the house, his head peering around the edge of the curtain with thin, wrinkly fingers curled around, grasping the fabric. An old man who was actually there, but Lizzie exploited his appearance to shunt attention off herself.

The Doctor clocked her investigation. "Ah. I should think that's the mad lord…"

The lord shrunk back around the curtain, disappearing off into the darkness of the house. Lizzie felt sorry for him – the amount of people, in that grim, Victorian day and age, who would have ridiculed him for being able to see ghosts. Even his own butler didn't seem to believe his boss.

They walked, arm in arm, down the drive, through the rain. Despite the weather, it was a beautiful day. Perhaps it was the weather that made it all the more beautiful. Puddles lapped up at their feet, splashing over the Doctor's scruffy old brown boots and Lizzie's converse. The drive was fast becoming a quagmire – by the end of the day, it would certainly be like a sea of mud.

Eventually, they came to the end of the drive. There was silence. Normally (or, at least, on period dramas), there was at least some noise from a huge house like this. It always felt as if the staff were constantly on the go, whenever Lizzie had watched Downton Abbey and Upstairs Downstairs and stuff. Though, she knew whitewashed period dramas were not the best way to gauge historical fact. Regardless of this, however, the house seemed in tune with the autumnal atmosphere. Dead… or dying.

The Doctor pounded on the front door, and they could hear the sound echo in some hollow hall inside. Nothing happened, for a good few minutes, and the two of them were left out on the doorstep, watching leaves sullenly skulk down from the skies. Eventually, they heard shoes tapping against a floor inside – marble, perhaps – and then the almighty wooden door swung open.

The man who stood in the doorway was not a small man – though he seemed it, in comparison to the door, and to the whole house. Dressed to perfection in the garb for a butler of a great house, his posture and stance indicated that he took his position very seriously.

It was then that after several years of watching period dramas, Lizzie realised what was about to happen.

"You should have come in the back way," the butler said, as if he were following a script.

The Doctor turned to Lizzie, and Lizzie turned to the Doctor, and after clocking each other's glances they had to look away from each other, to avoid bursting into laughter. Thankfully Cioné wasn't there to be a bad influence.

"I'm sorry?" the Doctor joked. "I didn't mean to disappoint you, we're the _ghost hunters_."

"And besides," Lizzie continued. "He's married."

They both sniggered – something that Lizzie found especially refreshing, as she expected the time for sniggers to perhaps be over sooner rather than later. Then, the man who Lizzie assumed was Robert Carson, butler of this fine manor, muttered a "come in" to the two of them. The Doctor swung past, and Lizzie smiled and followed. Chequered marble tiles covered the floor, and a chandelier hung from the ceiling, so precariously that it seemed as if even the smallest gust of wind could send the mass of crystals catapulting down to the floor. A stairway, almost wide enough to drive a carriage down, leapt up from the centre of the hall, and split into two, leading up to the higher wings of the house.

The Doctor was already admiring one of the great paintings hung up on the wall. It pictured a violent scene, of a man falling into a rush of waves and foam and seawater, and clawing his way to the surface, desperate for breath. He ran his finger across it, and a layer of dust came off, the width of an average-sized slice of cheese.

"Apologies," said Carson, deciding not to bother about the two peculiar people who had just wondered into the house of a great lord via the front door. "There isn't much time for me to dust nowadays. I try and get a maid in at least once a month, but even she's… reluctant."

"This is a big house, no?" the Doctor walked back over to the butler. "Don't you have… staff?"

Carson gave him a bemused look – not his first bemused look of the last five minutes – and stammered a few words, that were meant to sound like 'how do you not know?'.

"We're not from around here," the Doctor said. "We're… out of the loop, shall I say…"

"We were once one of the finest houses in all of England," Carson began, while Lizzie was internally screaming _nobody cares._ "Because of his lordship's madness, the number of servants decreased dramatically. Now, there is only myself, and the cook."

No staff, and he'd still wanted them in the back way. Mr Carson was clearly up on Victorian etiquette.

The hall of the house was not walked much, it seemed. The dust was visible in the light streaming in through the front door, and there was a musty smell – the sort that one would expect to find in old houses – except the sort that they would expect to find in an old house when it's actually _old_ , and not when it's being lived in.

"Why did you stay?" the Doctor asked the butler. Carson looked around, as if he were looking for someone to answer for him.

"I – I don't know," he shrugged. "I felt loyal, I suppose. This family have given me employment for 40 years. It would not feel right to throw it back in their faces."

The Doctor gave the butler a smile – perhaps it was a smile of understanding, or one of reassurance. Lizzie wasn't sure.

"Firstly, the lord isn't mad," the Doctor said.

"I understand that this is your line of work, but, really –," Carson began, in his deep, rumbling voice, before the Doctor interrupted again.

"Ghosts are real, Mr Carson."

"That's not possible –"

 _It definitely is_ , Lizzie thought to herself.

"I didn't believe in them myself until I saw your letter," the Doctor continued, pulling it out of his jacket pocket and scanning over it again, as if he were checking that everything was in order.

"But you're a – a paranormal investigator! How can you not believe in ghosts?" Carson spluttered, leaning against the bannister. He was an old man, one who, with the sheer amount of work he was doing, would probably spend a large amount of time feeling extremely tired.

"Not really," the Doctor admitted. "But look! I deal with aliens, I thought, why not ghosts? Because, when I saw this, it was just too difficult to resist. Also, there's a gigantic gash in space and time in your drawing room."

 _No surprise there, then_ , Lizzie thought. The Doctor could never resist a giant gash in space and time, and for once, she was thankful for it. She watched as he reached into his satchel, and pulled out the sonic screwdriver, holding it up in the dusty, stale air. Carson glanced at it, before shaking his head. He'd already had quite enough for one day, and had reached the stage of not even bothering to question it. Lizzie had been in his shoes frequently.

"Right. You seem to know what you're both doing," Carson murmured, turning away from them.

"Mr Carson," the Doctor interrupted. "Why don't you believe him?"

"Hmm?" Carson responded, in a way that suggested he didn't have an answer, and was merely stalling for time. "Because ghosts are ridiculous. And not real."

"Why are they ridiculous?" the Doctor strode up closer to the butler.

"Well… dead people walking! And let's be proper here, who has ever _seen_ a ghost!" Carson chuckled, expecting the Doctor to chuckle with him, before stopping awkwardly as he realised the Doctor was going to do no such thing.

"I can assure you, Mr Carson. Just because you can't see something, doesn't mean it's not real. And I hope that when all this is over, you, and especially all of your staff, are very, _very_ good to his lordship."

Lizzie breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

"And why would that be?" Carson squared up to him.

"So you make amends for how ignorant you are. Now please – would you mind showing us to the drawing room? It would be greatly appreciated."

* * *

It was not long before the Doctor and Lizzie were sat in matching deckchairs. As they had been prepared for their trip to the beach, it was not a hassle to retrieve them from the TARDIS. The Doctor had also donned a threadbare, beige fisherman's hat, and a holey tan jacket with little embroidered fish – apparently, the set had been waiting in the TARDIS wardrobe for years, and hadn't been used. It was fitting, supposedly, as the Doctor was also wielding a fishing rod, currently angling for something in the great Persian rug. Except, instead of a fly, or a maggot, or any other form of bait, a strange, glowing-green orb dangled above the carpet, its brightness constantly throbbing.

"And… you're sure the glasses are necessary?" Lizzie pushed her pair higher up her nose.

They were also both wearing pairs of glasses with bright, neon blue lenses, like blue sunglasses.

"I told you," the Doctor sighed. "To maximise our chances of seeing anything, we need to be able to see dimension shifts in the air."

Lizzie shut up then, deciding not to say anything else in case he got grumpy.

They both looked quite a sight, with their glasses, the Doctor in his fisherman's gear and fishing rod and Lizzie in her Hawaiian shirt and with her Walkman.

"And that… the rod," she braved. "That should help attract them, yeah?"

"The ecto-rod 4000. Yes – the latest in paranormangling technology."

"Is that a thing?"

"Yes," the Doctor shrugged, not looking away from the lime-green ball of light in front of him. It swayed gently from side to side, and Lizzie found it quite therapeutic to watch. "Humans, you're all horror movies and occasionally ghostbusters. But in reality, it's nothing like that," the Doctor swung the rod back, and recast the line. "This is where it's really at. Oh, before I forget, check my satchel."

Lizzie took his satchel and opened it. "What am I looking for?"

"A plastic tub. It should be there."

Lizzie began the process of rifling through his bag, the sheer untidiness of it all irritating her. She picked her way through a battered wallet, some keys (one of which was very big, made out of wrought iron and painted a bright neon pink), a chewed pencil and a diary, and she grimaced as she saw a half-eaten apple. "I can't see it."

"It's in the pocket."

"Which pocket…," she murmured as she unzipped one of the interior pockets.

"No, not that one," the Doctor said, keeping one eye on the orb, and another on Lizzie. "The one on the right."

"This one?" she said, starting to unzip another.

"No, no, the one below it."

"This bag is big..." she murmured, as she finally found the right pocket.

"Bigger on the inside," he explained. She didn't say anything, as she reached inside the pocket and found the Tupperware box he'd asked her to look for. "Now, if you open it up…"

Lizzie did as she was told, removing the lid of the box, and then recoiling from the utterly disgusting smell emerging from the inside.

"I've brought some sandwiches," the Doctor said, and Lizzie tried her best to look grateful. "There's cheese, pickle, tuna and gooseberry, and ginger, bacon, prawn and powdered milk."

Lizzie eyed up the sandwiches, wondering what had ever happened to the man with the supposed refined tastes. "Thanks… I think I'll save mine for later." She put the box back into the Doctor's satchel.

"For future reference," the Doctor started. "Favourite sandwich filling?"

"Hmm," Lizzie thought to herself. A good question, for she loved a good sandwich, and she loved a variety of different fillings. "I love cheese and pickle –"

"You'll love the cheese, pickle, tuna and gooseberry –"

" – I'm sure I will," she murmured under her breath. "But honestly, there's this… chain of restaurants on Earth, called Pret a Manger. And they do the most amazing cheese and pickle baguettes. It's like… really thick slabs of mature cheddar –"

"Ohh," the Doctor sat back, dreaming of the cheese, his mouth watering.

"And the pickle is lovely, and there's roasted tomatoes and red onions and mayo, and oh, it's delicious."

"You know – actually, pass me the box, would you, I'm starving."

Lizzie reached into the satchel and took out the box again, opening the lid and offering them to the Doctor. The Doctor reached in to take one, before hesitating, his hands hovering in mid-air.

"Actually, can you just get the napkins from the…"

His voice trailed off as Lizzie reached back into the satchel.

"Yep…," he saw her find them. "Yes, those are the ones. Just…"

Lizzie opened up the plastic packaging and passed them over to him.

"Brilliant… don't want to get the ecto-rod too sticky, it'll mess up the reeling system. Now for the sandwiches…," he wrapped his hands in the napkin, and as Lizzie passed him the box, he took one of the not-particularly-desirable ginger, bacon, prawn and powered milk sandwiches. It was on a seeded loaf.

"Enjoy…"

"Mmm," the Doctor wiped a sprinkling of ginger from his top lip, closing his eyes and lying backwards, letting the beautiful, fishy, meaty taste wash over him. Lizzie grimaced and looked back at the fishing rod. "Iris makes great sandwiches."

"Oh yes?" Lizzie enquired, turning away from him as the smell of prawn got too much. "How is Iris?"

"She takes after me, in that she's one of life's free spirits."

Lizzie nodded, aware of the fact that it didn't take a genius to work it out, but that the Doctor was probably oblivious to it anyway.

"She's doing this module as part of her course," the Doctor continued. "And she hates it. The field work is more her thing."

Lizzie smiled, and it was amazing how kids grew and found their place. She remembered Iris when she was so small, and was just doing what kids did, and now she was all grown-up and her own, brighter-than-bright individual. She dreamt longingly of her – they'd have to meet up again soon, as it had been way too long.

Whenever they caught up, it was that kind of relationship when they could just pick things up again instantly. She looked back on Iris' childhood fondly, however – the days when she'd been able to enjoy the company of someone who was just so happy. Lizzie envied those days. She wanted some for herself, but with every passing day, anything like that seemed so far away.

Was now the moment to tell him? Tell him about the _thing_. After all, there was a brief spell of silence, perhaps now, while they were on their leisurely ecto-fishing trip, would be the perfect moment. But she knew that there would be no perfect moment, because every time she came to tell the Doctor, she backed out, telling herself it wasn't the right moment. With that mindset, there wouldn't ever be the right moment. She would have to tell him, but she just couldn't do it.

 _Oh, what the hell._

"Doctor –"

"This is –," he spoke at the same time, checking his watch. "Sorry," he backtracked. "You go."

"No, no, don't worry."

"No, I was just saying it was awfully boring. What were you going to say?"

Lizzie couldn't do it now. It'd have to wait. She should've just done it, why couldn't she have just _done it_. And now she was telling herself not to be so hard on herself, but her mind just found itself going around in circles, as it always did. Lizzie side-lined it, which in fact meant use part of the brain stressing about it until she could be bothered to confront it.

"Oh, haha, I was just going to say Iris takes after you." And Lizzie wasn't lying – she could see both Iris' mum and dad in her. "I mean," Lizzie continued. "I don't know what the other 'yous' are like," she was, of course, referring to his other regenerations. "But I think an inability to sit still is probably a common theme."

"I disagree," the Doctor said, looking thoughtful. "I can easily sit still, as long as I'm doing something. Like a good book, for example. Nothing better than a good book."

"Yeah…," Lizzie definitely agreed with that one, glancing down at her bag and spying the book she was flicking through at the moment. She was still near the beginning, and she'd been reading it for weeks. It was unlike her, though – especially since she started travelling with the Doctor. The sluggish progress was much more reminiscent of her days back in Dunsworth.

She looked over at him, and she realised she hadn't dared to imagine what the other 'hims' were like. To her, there was just 'him'. The Edwardian gentleman, a man of the arts, with a heart of gold, but with a sliver of ice somewhere inside him. A family man at heart, a charmer and an introvert, an emotional chap, all while having a shocking sandwich taste.

"What are the other Doctors like?" she asked, randomly, perhaps hoping for a story to take her mind off herself. Then she blushed, and started to wonder whether that was a question like asking a woman her age, or something.

"Mad."

 _Nothing changes._

"Well," the Doctor pulled out an old diary, with _Something-year-old Diary_ emblazoned on the front. Lizzie didn't actually know how old he was, and it seemed that he didn't either.

He flicked through, and presented her with a picture of a man. He was older, a curmudgeonly grandfather, and he was stood beside an Aztec Queen. The photo had yellowed, and was starting to fade, and the edge was slightly creased, having been trapped inside this extensive record of the Doctor's life for who-knows how long.

"This was the first me. The original, you might say."

He looked almost-scary, but there was a golden twinkle in his eye as well.

"You've aged well," she acknowledged, not sure what else to say, because there weren't really words or any kind of social conduct to deal with a situation such as this. "But… you look lovely."

"That's me, and…," he flicked through, looking for another photo. "That's Susan, my granddaughter."

 _Grandchildren?_ The time travelling had grown too complicated for her to even grasp.

"I know," the Doctor acknowledged. "I applied for Jeremy Kyle, they told me it was too complicated."

She laughed, and the Doctor looked at her, a serious look on his face.

"Wait, you actually did?" she shut up immediately.

"Jeremy's an alien. Isn't it obvious?"

"Oh…," she thought back to the brief times she'd watched Jeremy Kyle on the TV and selfishly appreciated the fact that there was somebody out there who had a life more complicated than hers. "Anyone other TV presenters who are aliens?"

"Piers Morgan is a renegade Time Lord. He ran the journalism sector on Gallifrey, and was exiled following a series of inappropriate reports he published."

Lizzie believed him – and she was not sure what was more terrifying – the fact that Piers Morgan had not changed ever, or the fact that one day, he'd regenerate.

The Doctor flicked through the diary again, stopping at a page with a small gentleman, sporting a bowtie and wearing a pair of tartan trousers. He was holding a device – and at second glance, it appeared to be a recorder. Lizzie observed that he looked like a Beatle.

"Aww. He looks sweet," she smiled, looking at his impish smile.

"He was – I liked being him. I liked being everyone. But number 2 was definitely one of the most charming. Also I had the best bromance –"

The Doctor caught sight of Lizzie's eternal, never-ending bout of cringing, and agreed that he would never say 'bromance' ever again.

"I was a bit boring though, either dealing with some alien siege or the Cybermen. But always charming. Always fun. Those days were good."

The next page displayed a man with a frilly shirt and a glaring look. A dashing dandy, it seems.

"You wouldn't have liked him," the Doctor grimaced.

"Why not?" she couldn't imagine ever disliking an incarnation of the Doctor.

"He voted for Maggie Thatcher."

She hadn't ever had any incarnation of the Doctor down as a Tory. Then again… the frills.

"Yes... I lost my way a bit. Always fancied himself a bit of a Bond," the Doctor turned the page, and there was a picture of a bright yellow car, and of a girl sat in the back, dressed in a thick, fur coat.

"She looks lovely," Lizzie smiled.

"That's Jo. And she was. She lived such a happy life after me. And that, Lizzie, is Bessie."

"Who? There's only two of you in the photo…"

"The car was called Bessie."

Lizzie tried very, very hard not to laugh, and failed miserably.

"What?"

"I just – I never had you down as a… a car enthusiast."

The Doctor looked around sheepishly, as if it were a period in his life he would rather forget. She nearly asked him if he had a garage, but decided not to.

"I appeared on Top Gear with Bessie. I _presented_ Top Gear for several years, until I got sacked following a fracas."

She jokily wondered if he'd punched a producer.

"I punched a producer," he said, and she sighed, because it was exactly what she should've been expecting. "He was an alien, and nobody believed me. So I punched him, and broke his shape-shifter technology. Turns out the reason there was no hot food was because the creature could only consume roasted steak."

 _Okay…_

The next incarnation, she thought, looked like her kind of guy – a great, flowing scarf, with a long, grey coat, and a wide-brimmed hat balanced on his head. Black curls billowed from underneath. Whacky and bohemian, and a twinkling smile that could charm anyone. This man seemed very Doctor-ish, but she didn't know whether that was possible. People didn't usually have different incarnations. Except weirdly, at the same time, they did.

She'd also taken quite a fancy to his scarf. And the hat. This version definitely had the best sense in clothing.

"I had great fun then," the Doctor smiled. "Apart from the bit I let the Daleks live, that was awful. But still, it was a good time. I made a lot of enemies too…"

"Oh?"

"To be fair, I did have a tendency to be simultaneously popular whilst also pushing the boundaries, perhaps. That wound up a few."

The Doctor seemed like the sort of guy who was very good at attracting controversy.

"And this," the Doctor turned the page again. "Is my Sarah Jane. Oh, Lizzie, you'd love Sarah Jane."

She looked like a kind woman, but one with fire and passion as well. The sort of woman who would not take no for an answer, but was also deeply lovely at the same time, and would inspire so many.

The next page displayed a man who was much younger, and wore cricket whites, with a stick of celery on his lapel. He looked like the kindest, and the most amicable incarnation yet. He was surrounded by three people as well – two women and a man, barely more than a boy.

"You look so happy there."

"I suppose I had a family, in a way. Even so, I was terribly boring during that time. Insipid was my middle name."

Lizzie nodded in understanding, again reminded that the two of them were similar.

"Probably the cricket," the Doctor tried to lighten the not-so-awkward silence between the two of them. Such silences had dissipated since their earlier adventures, and Lizzie laughed.

"I never had you down as a sportsman."

"I'm not."

"Neither am I," Lizzie admitted. She sighed – even the thought of the boredom of exercise made her want to sleep. "Even so. Dunsworth House, table tennis champion."

"You didn't?" the Doctor looked at her.

"Battled my way fiercely through every round," she thought back to that day. It was boiling, deep within the heat of summer, and it was towards the end of her time at the home. Pat had organised the tournament, just to bring them all together, or something. And after complaining internally for half an hour, she eventually agreed, and fluked her way to the top.

The next page showed the Doctor's best recreation of 'Joseph and his Technicolour Dream Coat'.

"There's no justification for this," the Doctor turned the page straight away. "I wasn't that much of a moron, really – people just don't remember the good stuff. Same for me, to be honest – I look back on those days and remember monsters that looked like – anyway…"

"I'd quite like the coat," Lizzie was also admiring the cat broaches. She also fancied the umbrella of the man on the next page – short, he was, with a question-mark pullover.

"A dark horse, was the most recent me," the Doctor's most recent incarnation grinned back at him with a clownish smile. "Looks like a prat, but was actually a master-manipulator. Good days, those. Underrated in my own memory."

The different Doctors _were_ very different, perhaps – Lizzie's Doctor wouldn't be good at manipulating people. She thought so, at least.

"And then there's me," the Doctor closed the diary, and slipped it back into his coat pocket. He sat there, and suddenly the two of them felt very alone. It seemed definitive – they were right up to date, the end of the story. Nothing more to recap – only more to create. There was probably something deep she could say to respond to it, but she just sat and imagined what it would be like to change your face so much, and she found the idea strangely familiar. People changed.

They had both changed.

"Oh my goodness," the Doctor took one look at her Walkman, and opened it up, looking at the tape inside. "This song…"

"Hang on a sec," Lizzie reached into her bag and pulled out another pair of headphones, plugging them into the second jack. She handed them to the Doctor, and he slipped them on. She put hers' on well.

And suddenly, the voice of David Bowie was steadily rising in pitch.

In unison, the Doctor and Lizzie began to sing.

"Let's dance."

"Put on your red shoes and daaance the blues."

The Doctor began to do a little sway from side-to-side, and Lizzie looked down at her red converse.

"Let's dance."

"To the song they're playin' on the radio."

The Doctor found himself clicking his fingers along with the beat, and Lizzie swayed her head back and forth. They were somewhere else, a brand-new dimension – the music was like the TARDIS, transporting them to a brand new place, and a brand new time – and she felt herself leave her fears and anxieties behind. Now she was somewhere new and unfamiliar, but as they'd both heard the song before, so familiar at the same time. A better place, unfamiliar because of its happiness. As they danced together, it seemed even more alien – neither of them had done it before, and so the untrodden territory felt even more brilliant.

"Let's sway."

"While colour lights up your face."

The Doctor was smiling, more so than Lizzie had ever seen him before. Euphoria had spread across his cheeks, and he was grinning the cheesiest grin. If Carson were to walk in now, he would ridicule them – after all, Lizzie was wearing a hideous Hawaiian shirt, and the Doctor was dressed like a fisherman, and they both wore blue sunglasses, and they were singing stupendously loudly. And yet they kept dancing, allowing the rhythm and the lyrics to bring them both closer.

"Let's sway."

"Sway through the crowd to an empty space."

And the house was quiet, but for the sounds of their voices. The drawing room was almost like a bubble, and they were both trapped inside its great walls of song and dance.

They sang and danced (though it was kind of impossible because of the headphones, which they both kept stumbling over), for the rest of the song, and then they both collapsed in the deckchairs, laughing uncontrollably.

The Doctor cheered, and wiped the sweat from his brow. "That song is a _classic_."

"One of my all-time favourites," Lizzie knew all the lyrics, probably backwards as well. It was a song she had played during darker times, and it didn't feel right, because of the great disharmony between the joy in the song and how she was feeling. But because of that, it was, perhaps, an escape. As she looked up, however, there was that crushing feeling of reality seeping back in again.

The Doctor's mind had wandered, drifting back to the iCruiser. "I wonder how they're doing on floor 80."

Lizzie thought back to the evening when the Doctor had dared her to dance to _Girls Just Want To Have Fun,_ and he'd ridiculed her because he said she wouldn't do it, but she did it. And it was the best fun she'd had _ever_. It was the happiest she had been in a very long time.

Now the music had ended, the house seemed even quieter, apart from the constant tick of the grandfather clock. Both of them wanted the music back.

Time passed. Both of them talked, about whatever. Nothing clever or interesting or deep, just random stuff. The clock in the corner kept ticking. At times, Lizzie forgot what they were even doing there – but always in her mind was that she should tell him. With each random anecdote they each shared, she knew that the next thing she mentioned, should be _the thing._ But still she couldn't pluck up the courage, and instead focused on the sheer absurdity of sitting in an antique drawing room with a fishing rod. At one point, she took the ecto-rod from him, and the Doctor showed her how to use it. And they would swap back and forth, taking it in turns. Then she'd said she was going to put on her headphones and try and get some sleep, even though she knew she wouldn't get any sleep. She just wanted to listen to some music and forget about the world.

After a while, though, she slipped off her headphones.

"You mind if I go for a walk?"

The Doctor shook his head. "No – go for it."

So, Lizzie stood up, and made her way out of the drawing room. The house was a maze, and she allowed herself to just trail meaninglessly down the corridors. After all, that was all life was. No directions, no meaning, no nothing. All that could be done, was to walk, and to grin and bear any misfortune that arose because of it. It was dark within the mansion, as none of the gas lamps were lit, barring those in the drawing room, and night had settled, meaning the only light came from that of the moon streaming through the windows.

If one were on a conventional ghost hunt, it would've been rather terrifying. Occasionally, a floorboard would give an eerie moan, or she'd glance and see a painting of a terrifying old man in mediaeval frills, whose beady acrylic eyes would follow her as she crept through the cramped, twisting building. Yes, a notable aspect of the architecture was how small and poky the upstairs was – like a rabbit warren, twisting and turning and worming, in stark contrast to the almighty halls of downstairs – and even in contrast to the drawing room. She did wonder whether it was, in fact, the darkness changing the way she saw things, as if it were manipulating the world around her and allowing things to hide in the shadows.

However, none of this scared Lizzie. The reason she had decided to retire for a walk through the house was to try and focus on telling him about the thing. Although she'd told herself now wasn't the time, she knew it had to be now, for the reasons that she had been listing in her head.

1\. They were such good friends, and they had come so far together. It had been a long time since she saw him out on the street corner, sat beneath the lamplight. The two of them had been alone, and now they had a family. And through this, they had grown closer. He was her best friend and she thought, perhaps, he deserved to know. At the same time, she thought it was none of his business at all, and she firmly maintained this – but her brain was silly and did what it wanted, and had settled on believing that she wasn't comfortable keeping something like this from him 2.

2\. Keeping things from people was her MO, and although she was okay with that, it had got to a point where, with certain things, it had begun toxifying her own thoughts and she felt the desperate need to get this one off her chest. She had declared that she was awfully stupid for not doing anything about it sooner. But eh – she'd been too scared. Understandable

3\. And when she said it had begun toxifying her own thoughts, she meant that on multiple levels. The _thing_ was ruining her. It had crept inside long ago and it had been making her happiness rot and wither ever since. All this time, she'd just lived with it, letting the rot ruin everything it touched – and that included the outside world. It had destroyed her life, and she was sick of it.

4\. She checked the scars on her arm. Still very much there, from days she'd rather forget, but would never be able to forget.

5\. Also, she'd googled it and WikiHow had suggested telling someone was a good place to start.

Her list stopped, partly because she was quite certain she'd exhausted her entire list of good reasons to tell the Doctor about the thing, but also because she'd just walked past a room, and from the inside, she was almost certain she could hear someone crying. Within an instant, she'd turned around, and knocked on the door. There was no response, but the sobbing persisted, and perhaps quicker than was appropriate, Lizzie shoved the door inwards, to see, curled up in the armchair in the corner of the room, was a little old man.

He looked up as she walked in.

"Erm… hi," Lizzie murmured.

"Who – who are you?" the man spluttered, making a move from his chair – except, he quickly sat back, taking deep gulps of breath. Lizzie immediately realised that this had probably been a bad idea, but she decided she couldn't just leave when someone was crying. With that in mind, Lizzie walked a bit further over towards the Lord.

"I'm… erm, I'm Lizzie. We're here to… hunt the ghosts."

At that moment, the man almost lurched forward, as if she'd said something that had riled him up. It was, obviously, concerning the ghosts.

"You – you see the ghosts as well?"

Lizzie thought for a few seconds, as she pulled a piano stool over from beside the grand in the corner of the room. "Yeah." Though not, perhaps, in the way the Lord saw ghosts.

"I – I'm not mad, am I, they all say I'm mad – please, please tell me I'm not mad."

Lizzie gently placed her hand over the Lords – it was skinny, and decrepit, and pale. As she glanced around the room, she realised what a state this part of the house was in. It reeked, and mucky sheets covered the windows. The dust in this part of the house was thicker than the already-thick layer covering everything else, and it was completely pitch black, barring a tiny, flickering candle. The shelves were bare of any personal mementos, and as Lizzie gazed around, she realised that what this room truly meant, was neglect.

"You're not mad."

"But they all left me, they ran from me –"

"And that's a judgement on _their_ hearts, not _yours_."

The man took in another long, rasping breath, perhaps because it seemed as if there was no clean air in the room. "They say it's not real."

"Oh… they're definitely real. Even if not everyone sees something, that doesn't make it not real."

And Lizzie really hoped she was right. She really hoped the Doctor was right.

As she watched the old man, she had no idea what she could possibly say to him, that would perhaps give him some assurance that there was goodness in the world. His eyes wandered, as if he were looking for something, but wasn't sure where to find it. Maybe there was nothing that would make it easier. When she'd been in a state not far off him, she'd been almost impossible to get through to.

"You're gonna get help. Trust me."

Lizzie wanted to say more, she felt as if she had to, but then she had to look away from him, as tears were brimming in her eyes. She put a hand to her mouth, to try and stifle the audible sobs coming from it. It had touched something raw within her, and she shook her head, as she realised the weight of what was happening. As she realised that after this, she would have to tell the Doctor.

Lizzie turned back to the old man.

"It's not gonna feel like… anything positive is gonna happen. In fact, you're never going to be able to get these ghosts out of your memories," Lizzie shrugged, as if it were the simplest thing in the world and she'd grown used to it. There are… horrendous days coming, and I… I don't think I can say anything to you to make them more bearable."

She glanced over her shoulder to see Mr Carson enter the room, then started to speak to the Lord of the Manor again. _Some people need to change their attitudes_ , she thought. _That'd help._

"Maybe things will be okay. One day. All I can say is stay strong and you'll get there."

It was a rubbish speech. Really, not very good at all – but it was all she could muster. After all, she was well versed in what she was talking about – but not how to deal with it. All she could say was _it's dreadful_ , and draw it out a bit to make a rather majestic sounding speech. But everything else was just conjecture and maybes. But one day, perhaps she would be able to return and be able to give him some better words of advice.

She needed to speak to the Doctor.

On her way out, she turned to Mr Carson. "You need to treat him so much better than you are. I've been stigmatised my whole life, because of people like you. Change things, _do it now_."

Lizzie, for once, did not feel her usual need to apologise after her harsh words.

* * *

The Doctor greeted Lizzie as she arrived back and sat in her deck chair. She didn't reply, because she was too busy mulling over the words she was going to use in her head.

"As I thought," the Doctor glanced at the little screen on the ecto-rod. "The ghosts are just projections coming from the big time-space gash. And that's the real concern."

 _There's no just about it_ , Lizzie thought, irritated by the Doctor's dismissive attitude. But she had something important to say. "I need to tell you something."  
Lizzie forced herself to say that, so there was no backing out. No matter how much time she would spend finding the right words to strong together, at least now she would _have_ to say them at some point.

"Okay."

The Doctor looked fine about it – but then, perhaps he assumed she was going to say she'd accidentally lost one of the books from the library, or something. In contrast to the Doctor's chilled out appearance, Lizzie felt sick to her stomach, which churned with a visceral anxiety and a desperate desire to vomit. She was certain her breaths were becoming shallower, and as every second passed, she felt her heart ricocheting in her ribcage, having to try desperately hard to get the blood pumping around her.

Lizzie knew it had to be now, she'd got herself into such a state over it, there was no way she could back out and _not_ have a nervous breakdown. Other than Maggie, who didn't really count because she was basically magic, the Doctor would be the first person who knew – and by telling herself this, she was actually making herself feel worse. It almost felt as if every moment she had suffered during her teenage years because of it, and everything she had suffered from since, had been building up to this moment.

It was now.

"I have depression."

A few moments of torturous silence passed.

It only dawned on Lizzie that actually, the Doctor had very little idea of the constant washing machine-like cycle her emotions spiralled through day in and day out, considering she was quite certain she'd not let him in on very much of it – and so perhaps this would come as rather out of the blue. Or maybe, the Doctor being the observant sort of person he was, had noticed it ages ago, and had been waiting for her to say something. Lizzie had no idea, however she was clearly going to keep guessing until the Doctor said something.

"Right…"

"I mean," Lizzie tried to scramble for some words, believing that she had to defend herself, even though she knew that she didn't. "I've known for a while. Like, since I was a teenager. And I guess you've probably known too. But even though… I've known, I've still not been able to… accept it, if that makes sense?"  
The Doctor nodded – and even if he didn't understand, he could accept it. Although, she thought, perhaps, that the Doctor _did_ understand it. Especially with what he said next.

"Lizzie – why didn't you tell me this sooner?" he placed his hands on top of hers.

"Because… I'm not great at talking…"

"Well, have you tried getting any help, or…?"

Lizzie thought about that question, as it was one that had a multitude of different answers and she wasn't sure which one was best. _She_ hadn't tried getting any help. "Back when I was a teenager, Maggie noticed and I was diagnosed – and they put me on antidepressants and like a tiny bit of counselling but that was it."

She tried to calm herself down – the terrible provisions for young people with mental health issues always made her incredibly angry.

"And like, even when that happened I didn't really… grasp what I was dealing with, so when I started taking responsibility for my own healthcare I just sort of… neglected it. I was too scared."

The Doctor drew her hands closer to him, and looked her in the eye, and said, "Lizzie Darwin. Please – don't be scared any longer. I'm here for you now, and we're going to do something about this – I swear."

Lizzie shook her head, and it was then that she realised she was crying. "It's not like… saving the universe, you can't just – can't just push a button and save everything. I probably won't ever be able to 'cure' myself of this, all I can do is… live with it."

 _No matter how much it hurt._ And sometimes, it was those moments of just living that were the hardest. When she had to just... sit and do nothing, just chat about anything random.

"Lizzie… please. I promise – I'm going to help you."

"And I feel awful, because I should've helped that Lord guy, but…"

The Doctor quickly shook his head, and interrupted her. "You shouldn't feel guilty, Lizzie. I know you, and I know that you always need to help. But sometimes, you can't help, you can't even tell someone everything is going to be okay. And I know that when you, Lizzie Darwin, are faced with those situations, you just can't resist trying. Even when all you can say, is stay strong."

"But it doesn't help"

"But what matters is you tried. Many people wouldn't. Many people would've heard the crying, and would've walked on. And… the same goes for yourself. You need to help, but you don't know how."

His lovely words made her smile, briefly. But she still didn't feel reassured.

"You will get through this. Or at least - you won't, but perhaps I can help to ease the pain."

There was a silence between the two of them. And it wasn't the awkward street-corner silence of days gone by. They were together, now, as they truly were. Lizzie didn't feel better - but she hadn't expected to. There was no quick fix, no magic words she could speak to suddenly make herself euphoric 24/7. Lizzie Darwin would never be able to heal everything. All there was, was just... plodding onwards through life. Perhaps she could feel a glimmer of optimism, somewhere deep inside her. Perhaps, one day... things might be easier.

Lizzie was not a hollow, empty shell. She could be happy. People would look at her and think she was just miserable. Or people would say just stay strong, it's just a phase. What people did not understand was that she was ill. She could be happy, yes. But she could also be sad. And it was for to cope in the way she needed to.

It wouldn't always be easy. People seemed to judge her, to say she should always be happy. Life wouldn't always treat her well. Sometimes she seemed to believe that she had to be happy, and that if she wasn't, she was a failure - but it was okay to be sad.

All she could do, was muster up the grit and resiliance to drag herself on.

But for now, there was just the two of them. Sitting, and talking. To the sound of the grandfather clock, as time passed slowly by.

Neither of them spoke, because both of them understood. There were no words that could communicate that.

"Doesn't this society just… make you sick?" she said eventually.

"In what way?"

"In all ways. Just then, I guess, it was their treatment of people who… see things differently."

She thought back to some of the harsh words that Carson had used to describe his master, and how much the words had just made her skin crawl.

"Like," she continued, "they treated that lord guy as if he's weird and stupid and all sorts of other nasty things. But they don't recognise that he is a human and isn't just making things up. I don't know, I just find it really upsetting…"

"I suppose if you can't see something, you can't know it's there. It's just a… misunderstanding."

There was a deathly silence in the room for the briefest of seconds, and then the Doctor turned to Lizzie, to see that she was glaring at him.

The lord saw the ghosts. Why should that be discounted? To Lizzie, it was like her head. She was sad, sometimes. But just because the Doctor couldn't see those thoughts, that didn't mean they didn't exist.

"So many people have been stigmatized because there's people like Mr Carson around – I mean, in my time. So don't say 'oh, it was a misunderstanding', as some kind of defence for their rubbish attitudes."

There was an awkward pause, before the Doctor eventually apologised, and Lizzie accepted it, even though she'd been surprised and disappointed at what he'd said, because of all people, she'd expected better from him. To be fair on him, he probably hadn't meant anything by it – and it was probably that the words had just come out wrong. But even so. Sensitive subject.

Lizzie un-buried her face from her hands, and looked up at the Doctor.

"One of the worst things for me is this feeling that you're just… not doing anything worthwhile. Like, there's things that you could be doing, but you just, I don't know, can't bring yourself to do them. And it just… sucks your passion out of everything."

The Doctor gave her a funny look, and Lizzie looked at him awkwardly, because it was a bit of a weird and sudden thing to say.

"Yes," the Doctor murmured. "All the time."

That made her feel a bit better, at least – that the most powerful and god-like person she'd ever met at least felt similar to her at times.

"I run," the Doctor leaned back on the sofa, and Lizzie looked at him, as it seemed a bit random, before suddenly remembering what he was talking about. "Every single day of my life is me, running. Running from stuff I've got to do. And every single day, that stuff that I'm running from, it haunts me. Making me feel so, so guilty about everything I'm running from. But I can't get rid of it. It's always following me. I – I know that one day, I'll have to confront that stuff. And I know that it could kill me."

Lizzie turned to face him, and he was staring at the marble bust on the mantelpiece. It was of a titan, hunched over, on its knees, looking up as if it were searching for mercy that wouldn't ever be found.

"I guess… I don't know, but surely that stuff isn't important when you've got people like Cioné and Iris and people you love?"

"That's what I try and do," the Doctor said. His voice was emotionless and empty – not sad. It was as if there wasn't any emotion there for sadness. "But sometimes, the fear seems stronger than it."

"Fear," Lizzie observed, "is a very powerful emotion."

The Doctor agreed with her. He'd seen it exploited more times in his lives than he'd care to imagine.

"Lizzie," he started. "There's something I never told –"

Suddenly the room shook violently beneath them, and the marble bust of the titan rocked on the mantelpiece, flopping off onto the floor like a child rolling down a hill and accidentally realising it was the edge of a cliff-face. It was only the briefest of tremors, but it had great force – the artworks tore, and fell off the walls, while several of the books came catapulting from their shelves, the equivalent of bricks being lost from their buildings during an earthquake.

Both the Doctor and Lizzie were thrown onto the floor, and were given a quick dusting of plaster from the ceiling, like a baker sieving icing sugar over a recently prepared Victoria sponge. The gas in the light fitting erupted in a fireball, as if suddenly the entire room had been thrown into the sun, before the sun was extinguished, leaving them in nothing but a cold, cruel darkness.

The door of the drawing room burst open, like it had been locked and had been thrashed and bashed at by a gigantic fist, giving into the pressure, unable to hold it off anymore. Except, there was nobody there to have opened it. Nothing was on the other side, apart from the long, dark corridor, leading to some other distant wing of the house. The lights there were off as well, and all that could be seen were shadows. But the shadows were terrifying, and it was as if the shadows in that corridor were holding something truly terrifying, and truly scary.

"What on Earth," the Doctor's eye opened, to see the eye of the broken marble bust in front of him. He stood up, helping Lizzie out from a conglomeration of books and maps and a globe that'd come crashing down from the stop of one of the bookshelves.

When they both stood up, they looked at each other, and there was no sound.

No sound at all.

Not even from the grandfather clock.

It was almost comical as they both looked over to it in unison, but during the room-quake, the workings had broken. Its glass face had been pulverised, and the gold cogs of its brain and heart were spilled all out on the floor in front of it, as if the old grandfather had vomited up its insides.

There was something else wrong as well – but neither of them could quite work out what it was. Obviously something was drastically peculiar in itself – the entire room had just shaken beneath them. But something else.

Something else…

They both realised at exactly the same time, as they looked over at the door of the drawing room, and it was still closed. It didn't make sense, because during the chaos, the door had been forced open, as if a great hand had been thrashing and bashing and –

There was a new door.

Within an instant, the Doctor was already by the brand-new frame, looking at the brand-new hinges and the brand new panelling, and the brand new doorway that had suddenly opened up in the house. The drawing room was at the heart of the property – but it seemed as if this brand-new door and brand new corridor that hadn't existed before led to another heart, buried even deeper inside.

The corridor was bloodcurdling. Still hidden by the shadows, it looked as if it went on forever into some new, secluded dimension. The Doctor didn't dare step past the doorframe, as if by stepping through, he'd never be able to get back.

"Lizzie… I'm terribly sorry."

Lizzie was looking down the corridor, trying to pick out whether that was a shape moving in the shadows, or whether she was just making things up, or –

"What for?" she asked him.

"I've put us both in terrible danger."

The Doctor grabbed the new door, and tried to force it shut – but it would not budge from its spot. It was jammed wide open, a gateway for whatever was down the corridor to walk through.

"But – this is the dimensional thing, yeah?" she walked over to him, as he took out the sonic screwdriver, and pointed it down the corridor, although from the look on his face, it looked as if he didn't need to bother.

He knew something. She knew he did. And he'd done something. It all began to fall into place in her head – the Doctor had known something was wrong with this house along. Otherwise he wouldn't have been so quick to cancel a trip to somewhere he himself had cited as one of his favourite places in the universe. The Doctor was rubbish at hiding his emotions –

Except, he wasn't.

The Doctor was devious, and he knew what he was doing. He had been lying to her, manipulating her, preparing her for whatever awaited them. He had known that something was going to happen here. For all their time together, she'd thought he could read his face with ease. It seemed that now, she was beginning to doubt herself – because somehow the Doctor had hidden his true intentions away from her. Lizzie couldn't help but ask how long he'd been doing that for.

She remembered when they'd been looking through his diary, and he'd talked about his previous-self, how he was a master-manipulator, and how he had changed. When she looked at him, she didn't see him. Not the person she knew.

"Doctor, please," she looked at him. "Tell me you haven't been lying to me."

The Doctor looked at her, for the briefest of seconds in the eye, and then he looked away, because he couldn't bear it any longer.

"I'm so sorry, Elizabeth Darwin. I really, truly am. But – this isn't just a small paranormal investigation with a few ghosts. And, I knew that from the start, I did, but –"

She looked at him, as if to say 'tell me'. She didn't even need to voice the words aloud, because he knew.

"Lizzie – we're at the end of time."

* * *

 **THE SHADOWSTAR ALLIANCE**

 **SOMETIME IN THE 52ND CENTURY**

Dr Siddiqui's metal walking stick clicked and clicked and clicked against the glass floors of the ShadowStar's base of operations. Beneath him, he could see a sun exploding, and above him, he could see a million stars being born. Such birth and death on a universal scale only marked one thing.

Elle Mthembu's office.

The ShadowStar's base of operations always orbited around a few select locations in the universe – in those locations, there had to be star birth, and star death, simultaneously. The ship would be positioned so Elle's office floated around in space directly between the two. Supposedly it was because star birth and star death marked the most significant points in the universe, or some awful philosophy that Elle possessed.

It didn't matter, though. The two hallmarks were chilling, especially now, more than anything else.

Fear was rising through his stomach. And this was Dr Siddiqui – the greatest drug lord in the empire. A man who had been king of an entire underworld. He was not scared of things – things were scared of him. And yet, now, it seemed that finally there was something that would not bow to his will. Something that could not be reasoned with, something that was all-powerful.

He had learned, many years ago, that people were chess pieces. You were either a pawn, or you were a king. But you were never the gameplayer. Once he had been a king, before they turned him into a pawn, maybe a rook at a push. The one difference between life and chess was that there was no gameplayer. You were at the mercy of probability, of the cold clockwork of the universe, tick, tick, always ticking. A chess game, a clock, and a web, where each vibration disturbed something else. He could allegorise the universe so many times, but it didn't matter.

The scanners had detected something, and it was not going to be pretty.

He arrived at the glass door, and knocked. Elle looked up from her computer, and beckoned him in.

"What is it?"

She knew immediately that something was wrong. Dr Siddiqui rarely showed his face from the basement of the space station.

"We've found something."

Elle looked at him, waiting for him to continue, but he didn't say anything. He simply stood, thinking of _what_ to say.

"Go on! Spit it out!"

Eventually, he decided there was no other option.

"We've detected massive temporal convergences, all around one specific point in history."

"Right? So we neutralise it? It's a procedure we've carried out so many times before?"

Although as she said it, she knew it was not going to be as simple as that.

"The Doctor is there. The Doctor, and Elizabeth Darwin."

 _Those two constantly get themselves into trouble_ , Elle mused.

"And Evangeline Cullengate."

"… what."

It did not make sense. What would Evangeline Cullengate want with the Doctor and Lizzie?

"30th September, 1837, the house of the Dun family. It's as if time is just… I don't know, the scanners can't even decipher it. Total temporal collapse, on an impossible scale. It's like something is forcing its way through the dimension, trying to break out. And you heard me correctly – we've detected vortex manipulation devices. Cullengate's ministerial fleet has just cracked through the time vortex, and is currently flying towards Earth back in 1837."

Elle was going to ask him if it was a joke, but it was all way too outlandish and preposterous to be a joke. Siddiqui read her next thought aloud.

"Yes – that is what total temporal collapse means. That the exact point in space-time they are stood on is caving in on itself. It's because something is putting pressure on it. The Doctor and Darwin have found it… and it seems Cullengate is interested as well."

"Keep all eyes on Cullengate and her team. Whatever is going on here… it's huge."

* * *

"Good evening!" a voice called over from behind them. The Doctor and Lizzie turned in unison, to see her. The woman, sat in an armchair. She wore a sleek suit, a set of pearls draped around her neck. At the moment, she'd be recognisable almost anywhere in the universe.

Considering their previous encounter, she was even more recognisable to them.

"Prime Minister," the Doctor walked away from the door and over to her. "Good evening."

"Doctor," she held out a hand, and he shook it. "Pleasure to finally meet you in person, Miss Darwin."

Lizzie did not shake her hand, instead she looked at the Doctor, wanting to know how she'd managed to get here, and why she was here. All she could see was confusion – to him, the chain of events made sense. Though it seemed that not even the Doctor had expected Evangeline Cullengate.

And all the time, it was as if she were out of the loop, looking in. Events that were to do with her, and yet they wouldn't tell her. She felt like she was no more than a child, and she felt patronised and humiliated.

"What are you doing here?" the Doctor asked Eva.

"I could be asking you the same – except, I think you need to explain to dear Lizzie before you speak to me."

"She's right," Lizzie turned to face him. The words came out more abruptly than she thought they would. It was as if the hurt had forced them out – that somebody who had respected her for once was just making it up. "What is all this?"

"I've explained already," the Doctor walked towards her, and she backed away.

"No, you haven't."

"Okay, look. I knew there was something wrong with this house. There's a pressure point here – something is pressing, hard, on space-tie, trying to force itself through. And it's serious – the scale on which this is happening, Lizzie, is enough to break down the entire temporal structure. The jenga tower of time, Lizzie. Something, right now, is pushing on it, and it's going to collapse. As for her," he pointed at Evangeline. "I've got no idea."

Evangeline laughed to herself – it was more of an old-lady tut.

"Miss Darwin. The Doctor is a liar. A compulsive one at that. He just can't stop."

"Doctor, please. Explain to me, what's she talking about?"

"You've not even come close to explaining everything yet," Evangeline laughed/tutted again. Lizzie was stood there, in between the middle of the two of them, actively despising the old lady to her right, and feeling betrayed by the man she'd called her best friend to her left. At that moment, she hovered, exactly as she had done so many weeks ago outside her flat, when she couldn't decide whether to walk away from the Doctor, or whether to come closer.

She wasn't sure if she'd made the right decision.

"It's about you, Lizzie."

The room fell deathly silent. Not even Evangeline made any snarky comments now – instead she watched them both, like an eager television viewer anticipating the next twist.

Lizzie was going to say something, but she didn't. She let him continue.

The Doctor sighed – and he started to tell her everything.

"The Memory Graveyard."

Three, simple words. Unrelated to the situation they were in now – the fragments of a past adventure. When they'd journeyed through bad memories, all to save the Doctor's little girl.

The Doctor continued.

"Somehow, the Memory Graveyard was linked to your home – you remember, we accessed it from the pond out the back?"

They had – the Doctor, Lizzie, and Iris, had trusted each other, and even though they had no idea what awaited them, they were okay with facing it, because they were all together.

The Doctor continued.

"I had no idea why, but I needed to know – why was it connected to you? So I've been keeping an eye on it. And I was alerted when it started pushing through the fabric of time, at this point. I didn't plan on saying anything – just to keep looking at it from a distance. But when we got Carson's letter, and I thought, why not? Better to check it out in person."

The Doctor paused – he was looking for more words, but it was hard. The next bit was going to be the toughest.

"This place, Lizzie – your care-home is built on the site of this manor. The Memory Graveyard, it's like it's… overlaid on this spot, in another dimension. Somehow, it – it's got something to do with you, and I don't know what. But the graveyard is coming through, it's breaking down the walls of all time."

It was the story of her whole damn life.

She didn't say anything, she stood at the side of the room keeping her stupid mouth shut, thinking that it'd make things better for everyone else, and thinking that it would make things better for her. And because of that, she'd convinced herself, over time, that she couldn't. Couldn't what? Couldn't do anything. For every single waking second, she'd always hidden herself away because of people saying and doing things, and it had turned her into someone who was scared. Finally, she realised the sort of people who had done that to her. It was the two sorts of people surrounding her. The sort of people who had killed her confidence over time, and who had reduced her into the person she was.

They were both watching her now.

"No," she said. "I'm not doing this."

The Doctor looked over at her, guilt plastered all over his face, and he held out a hand. "Lizzie, please –"

"This can't be anything to – to do with me –"

"I'm sorry," the Doctor shrugged. And her skin crawled. Because that was all it was to him. A simple shrug. "I know what it is, you see – what's pushing on the pressure point in space-time."

Cullengate said nothing. Lizzie said nothing. But she was crying – she'd just realised it now.

"But I'm – I'm –"

"I don't understand it myself yet," he moved over towards her, placed a hand on hers, and she recoiled, walking over to a bookshelf.

"What's she doing here, then?" Lizzie turned to Evangeline. Very few people made her skin crawl in the same way as the old woman opposite her. She had never spoken to anyone with the same contempt she spoke to her.

Cullengate smiled, an old-ladyish, gummy smile. "Oh, Miss Darwin. Who says I have a clue?"

Lizzie knew she was lying to her. But then she stopped, and doubted herself, because she'd thought exactly the same of the Doctor. She was doubting it all – Lizzie stopped, and took a deep breath, and tried all the coping techniques she'd ever been taught, but they were useless, because she was trying them all at once.

"I know you're lying to me," she turned to Evangeline.

"Oh, of course I am. I know exactly what is going on." Evangeline sat stroking the ears of Evangeline's shaggy golden retrievers sat at her feet – Lizzie hadn't noticed them arrive. She didn't stand up, but proceed with a deadly nonchalance.

"As Prime Minister of the Empire," Evangeline took a breath, clearly enjoying herself. "I get lots of jolly powers – including control over the Earth's interdimensional activities, at every point in history. When I saw the Earth colliding with this… memory dimension, I felt a responsibility to investigate. Acting on behalf of the people, of course."

Lizzie glared at the woman, who clearly took note, even though she didn't care at all.

"You see – the Memory Graveyard belongs to me."

"You mean – it's the Empire's?" the Doctor stepped out of the shadows. He had been silent ever since explaining the situation to Lizzie. It seemed like a good place to interject.

"No," Evangeline sighed. "It's mine. I built it – from the federal reserves, of course," she shrugged, as if it were obvious. "It's my insurance."

"Against?"

"The Daleks."

The atmosphere in the room ran colder than it had been before. The ghosts of the Daleks had a greater impact than any true spectre or phantom.

"Every disgusting, brutal, hateful, awful, event in every life, _ever,_ " Evangeline whispered the 'ever'.

"It's a goldmine for the Daleks," the Doctor spat.

"And the Time Lords," Evangeline continued. "You misunderstand me. My people are terrified of the Time War, Doctor. The Memory Graveyard is going to keep it safe. I will let it through into this dimension. A last line of defence, to be unleashed against this godforsaken war."

"Look," the Doctor ran up to her, and although she was sat down, her presence towered over him. "I hate this war, I despise it, with _everything_ inside me. But if you think I'm going to let you exploit a universe full of people, just so you are so, _so_ wrong."

"And a broken Time Lord? Well, we found a truly rich source of bad memories to extrapolate it from…"

Evangeline murmured it. It was barely audible, one would have to have been listening very, very intently. But somehow, both the Doctor and Lizzie were silent in an instant, and the words clawed themselves deep into them. It was at that moment that both of them realised they were vastly more out of depth than they'd imagined previously. Although they were already at the end of time, the notion Evangeline had suggested was almost more bloodcurdling and chilling and bile-filled and spine-tingling than anything else.

Evangeline looked as if she couldn't wait to tuck into the next part of her little emotionally-torturous feast. Unable to resist it any longer, she embarked on the next part of her tale.

"The Memory Graveyard is powered from the mind of one person. Of course, Doctor – with so much history behind you – you were the only viable candidate."

One of Cullengate's golden retrievers nuzzled close up to her leg, seemingly enjoying himself just as much as his mistress.

Lizzie looked at the Doctor, and at his silence. The Doctor's face was a mix of confusion, and of fear – it was a fear she hadn't seen from him before. The Doctor had a dark side, of course he did – everyone did. And when he spoke of the Daleks, it was always truly prevalent. Though his face now was one of the most terrified man in the universe. The old man was so childlike then. A fearful child is a truly heart-breaking spectacle, and the Doctor looked exactly like one.

Of course, everyone knows that the most terrified thing in the entire universe is a bunny rabbit, taking its chances and throwing itself across a road, in a desperate bid to reach the other side – but failing at the last minute. If one could slow down time, as their car was mere milliseconds away from transforming that sweet, innocent fluffball into bloody, shredded roadkill, one would see a fear that would chill their blood until it became harder than the hardest ice. It is a peculiar mix of a life flashing before the rabbit's eyes, and the anxiety of what lies beyond the grave, and a look of sheer nakedness. The look is one of, 'why me?'. Why did the universe look at its list of subjects and sign the clipboard stating the life of that rabbit is to be claimed on that fateful day, perhaps by a hurried commuter, a car of kids on the school run, maybe a trucker one his way from Carlisle to Poole? If one could slow down time like this, it would change the person.

With vulnerability sloshed all over his face, his eyes bared exactly that resemblance. Lizzie saw it, and she wanted to cry more. Evangeline saw it, and she grinned.

"No – no, no, that isn't possible," the Doctor spluttered. Now it was not Lizzie's turn to have no idea what was going on – instead it was his.

"You're there now," Evangeline was still sat down, smiling up at him, and yet the Doctor was so, so tiny. "After all – the Memory Graveyard takes place at every single moment across all of history. You're powering it, Doctor."

"I can't be, I would know, surely, I would."

The Doctor suddenly realised the oak-panelled walls had collided with his back and his cranium, and he reached out a hand to nurse it, but suddenly he couldn't find his hands.

"It's going to start sinking in, now you're aware," Evangeline continued. "Oh, Elizabeth," she stood up, walking over to Lizzie. Lizzie stepped away from her, but Evangeline placed a mocking hand on her cheek. "Such a beautiful little girl. A life wasted on a man like the Doctor."

Lizzie put her other hand on Evangeline's, and moved it away from her face. No –the Doctor had lied to her, he'd got it wrong before. But would she leave him to a woman as vile as Evangeline Cullengate? Certainly not. He needed her help, more than anything. As Lizzie backed away, shaking her head, Evangeline smiled sadly. Lizzie was good at reading faces. Lizzie's face was hard to read, apparently. But now so many things had happened, so many people had hidden themselves from her, and –

She didn't know anymore.

Lizzie didn't know who she was. She didn't feel like herself. She was somebody else, looking at a body without a heart, without a brain.

"The Doctor and Elizabeth Darwin," Evangeline was stood in the middle of the Doctor and Lizzie. "Such a pretty little fairytale. So magic – the sad old man and the sad little girl, who journeyed through time and space in their bigger-on-the-inside box. It's sad that it doesn't get a happy ending. Though – I suppose life isn't like that."

* * *

The book was closing. Lizzie was falling back, letting words and pages and chapters and covers and blurbs and paragraphs and punctuation wash over her. The Doctor was, somehow, moving away from her, although he was stood right by the wall. So was Evangeline – and then Lizzie realised that it was herself who was somehow falling backwards. It was as if somehow, she was crashing through a horizontal chasm, with the drawing room and Evangeline and the broken grandfather clock that would tick-no-more, steadily falling away from her.

Away.

From.

Her.

* * *

"Lizzie?"

Muffled voices, far away. They didn't mean anything, just words, cascading together, like waves in the sea, always rolling over and over but in the end, just blurring into one, lapping up at the shoreline.

They were going to the beach.

They should've been at the beach.

Instead, somehow, they were in a trap, and there was the wicked witch, and she'd taken the wizard away to her dark, ancient tower, where she'd trapped him for eternity, to live forever with nothing but the company of bad dreams and memories and –

"Lizzie?!"

"Lizzie?"

"Lizzie?"

Lizzie was not in the old house anymore.

For some reason, she was on a leather settee, and there was a steaming mug of tea in her hands. It took her a few seconds just watching the bubbles on the top of tea, before she realised something.

Her hands were different.

Not massively different, of course – they were still her own hands. But when she looked at them, there was definitely something new.

Or not new?

Her hands were older. Of course, they were still the hands of someone in their twenties, but they were… thinner, sort of? Skeletal, perhaps. Veiny.

She dared to look away from her hands. There was a woman sat opposite her – she seemed vaguely familiar, but it was like that thing, where you can remember  
the plot details from a film, and you just can't quite put your finger on what film it is.

The room was nice, though – the woman sat in an armchair, and there was a glass coffee table in the middle of them. A few artworks hung up on the walls, and there were French doors, looking out onto a vast, extensive garden. It was high summer, by the looks of the flowers and the plants – seas of crimsons and violets and golds. At the far end was a blossom tree, and a small fishpond as well, with a sundial beside it. The sun streamed in through the windows, filling the entire room to bursting with bright, midday light.

Lizzie looked down at her hands, and she was still sure they were different.

And her clothes were as well.

There was a mirror on the far wall, and she caught sight of herself. At first, nothing registered – she was still her, she was still Lizzie Darwin.

Except, she was older.

Not hugely older, but a few years, perhaps.

"Lizzie," the woman opposite said. "I know this is hard for you, and it was a very brave thing for you to do – to be able to recount this for me."

Lizzie didn't know what to say, and then she said the obvious.

"I – where am I?"

There was an awkward silence, but for once she didn't feel stupid, because she genuinely had no idea.

"Take another sip of tea, Lizzie. I think the stress of recounting the incident that led to your departure was, perhaps, a little bit much all for one session."

Lizzie took a sip of tea, and, of course, it healed everything.

She knew who she was.

Elizabeth Darwin, of course. And, this was her counsellor. She came here every week, on Wednesdays, at half-past-twelve. They drank tea, and Lizzie recounted her stories. Lizzie Darwin knew exactly where she was, and she knew what she did. She could remember everything about her life.

Lizzie Darwin could also remember that the incident in the Victorian manor, the incident that had led to her leaving the Doctor, had taken place five years ago.  
"So that's that," Lizzie shrugged. "That's the story of how I left the Doctor. And… five years later, here I am."

She was so stupid – of course she was older. Five years older to how she'd been then. And Lizzie had lived five years of a life – a happy life. A life always haunted, but a happy life, still. Her memories of her time with the Doctor would always be there.

But they were no more than a fairytale.


	14. 512 Fire Forgotten

Elizabeth Darwin felt the grass beneath her feet. It was springy, and bouncy, and soft. When she stood there, looking down, everything felt new again, as if she'd been born an adult, and she were experiencing the world again for the first time. Everything _felt_ so much realer. She couldn't shift it from her mind – that feeling of being born again. When she'd retold her tale, and blinked, and suddenly realised she was sat opposite a counsellor, it was as if suddenly her life was beginning again.

But she'd told herself, it wasn't possible.

Though it just wouldn't go in, as if no matter how many times she could tell herself and reassure herself, it just wouldn't be _right_. She would think positively, she would think of something else, but it would always be there. Looming over her, like something latching onto her back, and no matter her efforts at trying to shake it off, it would claw on, and refuse to let go.

Mary was her counsellor, and she'd suggested they go for a walk, just to the end of the garden, and Lizzie had agreed. Maybe doing something would help her to shrug off that ever-present feeling that something wasn't quite right. They left through the sliding doors, and Lizzie had said she was going to enjoy the walk – but it just made it worse. So many sensations, all of which she recognised, but all of which she felt she hadn't experienced yet. A strange disharmony, between understanding the world, and everything being alien to the touch. Then it clicked – it was as if she'd read it in a book, but hadn't experienced it for real.

The grass was strange – and there were smells, beautiful, Earthy, floral scents, from the beautifully planted flowerbeds. Mary had a passion for gardening, and it was obvious from the perfect formations of flowers, all in deep crimsons, and regal purples, and seas of translucent aqua and turquoise. Birds tweeted – so many birds, and Lizzie caught sight of one, perched on the top of the blossom tree, at one with the world, and happy. A cat on the far end of the red-brick wall, sunbathing, its eyes closed to the world. Perhaps it had drifted to sleep – but who knew? The cat was content, lapping up the warm embrace of the world. Another bird flew down from the roof of the great town house, and landed on the patio surrounding the pond. It dipped its beak into the cold, and drank. It raised its tiny head up, and gave a tweet of happiness, letting the refreshment and the stunning feeling of the coolness run down its tiny throat. In the sun, the fishpond was a liquid mirror, the world reflected precisely on the undisturbed surface.

Lizzie knelt down beside the water, and she could see the faint outlines of goldfish, slinking gently throughout the depths, a gentle meandering, as if there was nothing purposeful to their swimming – they were after nothing but pleasure.

This world was perfect.

Her alien-ness was not the only odd thing – it was the perfectness, the lack of any imperfections. It was blemish-less, it was beautiful. Lizzie wanted to spend the rest of her life here.

Then she remembered.

She _had_ spent the rest of her life here.

 **the eighth doctor adventures**

 **series 5 - episode 12**

 **fire forgotten**

 **written by ed goundrey-smith**

 _Lizzie ran._

 _Evangeline Cullengate and her people had the Doctor. He was powering the Memory Graveyard, a whole dimension that was going to bleed through into the universe and destroy it. She'd fallen backwards, away from the two of them, and she'd stumbled backwards through the door of the drawing room, before sprawling into the corridor and collapsing against the back wall. She couldn't just let the Doctor go, and so she ran at the door, which had swung shut behind her. It wouldn't budge, and so she pounded on it, over and over, desperate to get in and save him from the Memory Graveyard. She tried kicking it, and crashing into it with her shoulder, but it wouldn't open. She so badly needed to help him, to get him out from this, but she couldn't – there was a door in the way, so solid it was practically a wall._  
 _Until suddenly, the door, with a lightness, gently opened._

 _When Lizzie ran into the room, desperate to find the Doctor, she realised that he was gone. Evangeline was gone. Hugo and Edwin were gone. She was muttering to herself, and she dashed over to the place on the wall, where the magic appearing door had once been etched. Lizzie pressed herself hard up against it, as if she'd be able to hear something on the other side, perhaps some recognition of wherever the Doctor was._

 _But there was nothing._

 _Lizzie had to do something, but she had no idea what._

 _So she ran._

 _Lizzie clattered out of the drawing room, and stumbled through the corridors, and bounded down the great staircase, and tore out of the great oak doors to the mansion, before she dashed down the gravel driveway, where she could see the TARDIS waiting for her by the huge gates at the end – gates which seemed even more imposing than ever. Lizzie fumbled around with her key, slamming it into the lock and yanking it, until she fell through the doors of the TARDIS and smashed them shut behind her._

 _Her lungs were engulfing the air, as Lizzie was desperate for as much of it as she could manage, shattered by how fast she'd run, and terrified of what was coming after her. She didn't even know if there was anything coming after her, but Lizzie was almost certain of it – and she didn't feel safe in that blue box anymore. The doors behind her suddenly felt so very thin, and she remembered the first time she'd ever stepped inside that box with the Doctor. In fact, the conversation echoed in her mind._

 _"Nothing can get through those doors."_

 _"Nothing only extends to the amount they've been tested against."_

 _That observation seemed more important now than it had done before, as those doors seemed like futile protection from the demons of the outside world. It felt as if nothing would ever be able to protect her from those demons – as if wherever she ran, they would never, ever stop following her. They would walk through walls, and stride over water, and fly through the air, until eventually she had to tire, and the demons would reach her. And Lizzie Darwin would be gobbled up, and gone forever._

 _The doors were too thin._

 _She was still heaving for air, but no matter how much she took in, it felt as if none if it was doing what it should've done, and Lizzie felt her throat close up, and the agony in her chest, the screams of her lungs as they cried out for more oxygen. And although she took great, heaving gasps, nothing would happen, and Lizzie felt her eyes droop close, and the life drain from her limbs._

 _She slept._

 _But the sleep didn't last long, because in her panic Lizzie threw herself forward and ran over to the console – and then came the greatest moment of all, the one thing she'd really been hoping for more than anything else. It seemed that maybe, although everything seemed bleak at that moment, there was some hope._

 _The time rotor started to slide up and down, and the room began to spin – and echoing around her was that joyous sound that brought hope to so many people. She smiled, and then she laughed through the salty tears that she'd only just realised had trickled down her face. They were in flight – perhaps some automatic response programme leaping into life to save her. Yes – with this, she'd be able to get in touch with Cioné, and Iris, and – and perhaps they would be able to work out how to save the Doctor. Yes, that's how it would work. Lizzie didn't have to lean against the console, she almost danced away from it, in fact, relief bubbling through her with such force it might even have been euphoria._

 _But the world crashed down around her, when Lizzie realised she was just dizzy._

 _And the metallic breathing of the TARDIS was her own hoarse breath, as her incessant gulping of air had started to ease._

No, no, no… _she slumped back against one of the bookshelves, sliding down it until she was hunched up, sobbing into her hands._

 _Lizzie couldn't do it. She had to do something, she knew that she did, but as she looked around her, at that almighty, dark, and empty control room, she couldn't bring herself to even stand up and face what she needed to. All she wanted to do, was stay there, quiet in the corner, and to hide from this. To never face it, and hope that it would all go away._

 _And Lizzie hated herself even more for being so selfish. Her greatest love in life was helping people, and finally that had been sucked away from her in fear of the universe. She was nobody, not even herself. Through this, guilt began to burn through her; the Doctor had said she was his best friend, and now she was too rubbish and useless to help him – the constant, pressing feeling of guilt hung onto her, like an anchor mooring a boat. Except, in this case, it was attached to her foot, and it was dragging her under water. The salt roasted the back of her throat, and she felt the water as it began to stuff her trachea and her lungs – but above all, it was the pressure, of gallons and gallons of ocean crushing her._

 _Lizzie was useless. Who was she? Just Lizzie Darwin. Nothing to anybody. Just a stupid waste of space, who people liked, but they had people they liked more. At that moment, she despised herself even more for her shallowness, but it was true. Now she couldn't even help, everything she'd once prided in herself was gone. She should've just died, there and then. That's all she wanted._

 _The stars in the observatory were gone. Nothing to live for, it seemed._

 _But as the TARDIS console room shifted slightly, just at that precise second, just as Lizzie was looking to the skies, she saw something. It was a lone star, far, far away – and yet it burned so brightly, that even though it seemed tiny, to her, it was massive. To her, it meant more than most stars did._

 _Lizzie took a deep breath, and she felt the air rush into her lungs._

 _They won't take it from me._

 _The Doctor was her best friend, and she was his, and she had to do this. No matter how much it hurt her, no matter how insane it drove her, she was going to do this._

 _She was going to help him._

 _To save the Doctor._

Lizzie blinked and reality seeped back in around her.

They happened, these brief interludes. Flashbacks to the end of her time with the Doctor. _To save the Doctor_. Completely futile, when she thought about it. How could you defeat someone like Evangeline Cullengate? Someone with enough power and money to abuse. It hadn't been long, before she'd ended up returning to Earth. Lizzie could remember it, on the first night, five years ago.

She had woken up, alone, in her flat. It had been the small hours. Her favourite time. There were no sounds, but for those noises that houses make. Everyone knows those sounds, because they happen in every house at night. Perhaps they are pipes clinking, perhaps the boiler is humming its tune, quietly to itself, or perhaps, somehow, a faint breeze has crawled through the gaps in the windows, and has blown at exactly the right moment, to allow a book to softly high-five another. All Lizzie could hear were those sounds, and she was back in normality again. Except normality did not feel quite proper – there was a peculiarity to them. She'd grown so used to that non-stop, unearthly hum made by the TARDIS, that this return to normality was disorienting.

Her life had continued as it had done before the Doctor. She lived her monotonous days, working in the little café, and living in her tiny flat. Sleepless nights and tea with Maggie and sitting on the bench and watching the sunset followed. And then stuff happened and…

She started writing.

Of course, she hadn't just randomly started – writing had been part of her for so many years. Stories had lived in her, for as long as she could remember. Even as a kid, she'd write down tales in crude notebooks with stubby pencils, and let her imagine flow onto the paper. Throughout her teens, she started to type them up, and soon she'd write short stories, 20,000 to 30,000 words in length, all tales living inside of her. That was what being a writer meant to her – bringing those stories to life.

Her life with the Doctor had given her courage – to bite the bullet, to go do something truly special that she wanted more than anything else.

So she left the tiny market town of Dunsworth, and moved to London, and rented a flat half-the-size of her tiny Dunsworthian place, so small it was practically a broom-cupboard, but it didn't matter, because she had a whole city ahead of her! A city of so many people, with bright lights and bright dreams and happy people. She got a job, this time in a tiny second-hand bookshop, down the back of a small cobblestone alleyway. And in the evenings, she would write. Pages would flow from her, and even after hovering around the phone for half an hour not doing anything, she picked up the phone and she spoke to publishers, and she'd had something published! Just a short story in some amateurish e-book collection, but still – it was a start.

All because of the Doctor.

The Doctor had truly changed her life for the better – given her the courage to do all this stuff that she wouldn't have been able to do before. Helped her to realise her dreams, everything she ever dreamt of but was always too scared to try for.

And the guilt ate at her, every single day. Just like the constant, overbearing feeling now, beside the fishpond, that the world was brand new to her, the guilt was a black cloud, looming over her, perhaps always ready to burst, and then the rain would fall.

Because of that, she remembered, she started to come and see Mary. She'd come recommended – she couldn't remember who by. Lizzie told Mary about the Doctor, and Mary had listened. She didn't think she was mad. Now Lizzie came to think about it, that didn't make sense. But she understood, for some reason.

"Lizzie?" Mary said to her. "Are you alright?"

"The fish…," Lizzie murmured, watching them, and finding it therapeutic.

"Yes, love. They're fish," Mary said, gently, as she sat down on the wooden swing-seat beside the pond. There was a birdfeeder, and Mary took it off its metal hook. She sprinkled some seed into her hands, and hung the birdfeeder back up. Then, she held out her hand, and watched as the birds, one at a time, landed on her arm, and gently pecked the seed from her palm. Mary watched them contently.

Lizzie felt almost as if the years that she had just recounted in her head had been… fast-forwarded, perhaps, like her entire life were a video and she'd just cycled through to the interesting bit. She could remember the rough details, but the actual moments of simply living were non-existent. It was like she had been alive, but only now, had she just started living.

"The world is so perfect," Lizzie thought, and then realised she was accidentally speaking out loud.

"Yes," Mary said, watching the birds eat their dinner from her hands. "Yes, I like to think so. And quite frankly, I bloody hope it is."

Mary paused, then spoke again.

"Look, Lizzie – perhaps you need to go home, and get some rest, love. You don't seem quite yourself."

Lizzie looked at the woman, and then at the sun-baked house behind her, and then at the cat on the wall, and then at the fishpond – a mental check of her surroundings.

"Yeah," she said. "I think I do. Sorry to bother you…"

"Lizzie – I'm sorry," Mary helped Lizzie up – she'd been sitting on the floor, looking at the fish. Lizzie herself had only just realised she'd been sat down. "Perhaps we moved too quickly today – recounting the whole experience."

"Erm, no, no. Don't worry about it," Lizzie smiled. "We were always gonna have to go over it. Now was a better time than any. It has been, like, five years."

They went back inside, and Lizzie picked up her bag.

It was alright – she knew where she was, she knew what she was doing.

Perhaps it had just been some… existential crisis. A brief moment where the world had kept turning, and she'd been left behind. But no – she knew exactly where she was.

Her name was Lizzie Darwin. She had left the Doctor five years ago. She worked in a second-hand bookshop, she was a writer.

Everything made sense.

***

"Actually, can you do that without the chocolate?"

"You want us to make you a hot chocolate… without the chocolate?" the waiter stared back at the girl in the feather boa and the luminous pink fur coat incredulously, as if the last thing he wanted to be doing was dealing with a tricky customer. Lizzie smiled to herself as she overheard their exchange.

"Yeah."

Then she paused, as she glanced at her Instagram notifications.

"Actually," she continued. "That's just hot milk isn't it?" she thought for a few seconds. "Okay, can you do it without the milk?"

The waiter sighed, and before he could say anything else, the woman with the ruby-red lipstick and the fur coat and the heels interrupted him.

"Actually, just boil some water."

"Right, okay," the waiter turned, before the woman overheard him swearing.

Lizzie watched Kym, her friend from the publishing house, with her heels and her lipstick and her constant Instagram-esque pout, try and negotiate with the waiter on the other side of the counter. Eventually, the water turned away from her, and Lizzie was almost certain she saw him swear under his breath.

They were in a Starbucks, overlooking a crowded street below them – London was swarming with shoppers and tourists and selfie sticks – it was mid-afternoon on a Saturday, and so it was only to be expected. Lizzie sipped gently from a cup of tea, watching her friend pick up her hot water, and bring it over to her.

"Is that…," Lizzie was going to ask, but Kym interrupted.

"Yeah, it's boiling water," Kym said casually, sipping from the mug, while Lizzie was wondering what the point was of drinking boiling water. It was as if Kym read her mind.

"Well, I wanted something hot to drink, but didn't want any calories – I'm already _so_ close to my daily intake."

Lizzie didn't say anything, but sip from her tea, as Kym scrolled through her phone. They were so different – Kym was all trendy and modern and everything, and Lizzie was not. They'd struck up a friendship, after they'd moved to London at a similar time, and Kym had started working as a PA to Lizzie's publisher, and even though they were the antitheses to one another, they'd still struck up a 'I'll be friends with you until we find other people' kind of friendship. And they hadn't found many other people.

"But anyway. Forget me, talking about myself. How was counselling?"

Lizzie sighed, because she couldn't really be bothered to talk about it. Also, because she didn't know _how_ to talk about it.

"Okay, I won't ask," Kym gave her a friendly smile.

"Sorry," Lizzie was thankful, and breathed a sigh of relief, taking another sip of tea.

"I get it," Kym took a sip of her boiling water. "Anywaaay…"

Kym took a deep breath, and Lizzie could tell a bombshell was going to be dropped. Kym deliberately paused for longer – an anticipatory pause, and eventually, Lizzie found herself more nervous than anything else, and willed for Kym to get on with it.

However, nothing could have prepared her for how deeply terrifying and troubling the true extent of Kym's revelation actually was. The very words made her legs quake, and her hands tremble, and her palms sweat. She could not even make herself take a nervous sip of tea – instead she sat, paralysed with fear, staring into the cold, dead, merciless eyes of Kym – a person she'd thought to be her friend.

"I'm having a birthday party!"

This was one of the moments – those make or break moments – where the next thing you could say could truly decide the fate for the rest of your life. Lizzie had to make sure she handled it perfectly.

"Will you come?" Kym continued.

It was going to be fine. Lizzie was going to deliver the perfect, calm, and measured response. She was going to tell Kym exactly what she needed to be told – she was going to tell her exactly what she needed, more than anything else. If she did not, everything could go horribly, horrendously wrong.

She took a few moments, just to compose herself, and make sure she said the right thing.

"Yes."

No no no no no no. That wasn't the right one. No was the right one.

Lizzie took another sip of tea, to brush off the awkwardness of the mumbling sounds spilling from her mouth. She hadn't quite realised she was making them.

"You hate me, don't you?" Kym was blunt.

Lizzie said nothing, trying to think of some simple way she could salvage the wreckage of this conversation.

"Come on, Lizzie," Kym placed both hands on her table, and she was trying to think of something funny to say, but couldn't. "Look. You're one of my best buds, right, and I know we're like, soo different, but whatevs. It'll be a laugh."

"I won't know anyone," Lizzie gulped as anxiety rose through her, and all she could think of was the crushing feeling of being the one awkwardly stood in the corner, which was a weird metaphor for her entire life.

"It's fine, Lizzie, you're my wing-woman."

Lizzie didn't know if it was a good thing that the only reason she would be there was so Kym could escape singleton, but not wanting to disappoint her friend, she sighed, and said

"Fine."

"YAAY! So, you make me look cool, but I also stop you from being awkward, and also, I introduce you to knew peeps and you make new pals."

 _Sounds delightful_ , Lizzie smiled at the thought of social crucifixion and the now-perpetual cringing of her soul.

"When is it?" Lizzie asked.

"Friday, come up whenever, we'll have drinks, it'll be cool. You're not doing anything else, are you?"

 _Nooope_ , she thought of her vacuous social life that she actually quite enjoyed.

"Cool," Lizzie agreed to the uncool situation.

"So," Kym said. "I met this guy, who…"

And she kept talking, while Lizzie kept fearing internally (and probably externally) about the fate awaiting her.

Partying.

***

When Lizzie approached the front of the block she lived in, there was a black cat, curled up on the breezeblock turrets, sunning itself in the thick gold rays blanketing all of them from the sun in the sky. It was the same cat from Mary's garden, she realised. It could have been any black cat, but Lizzie was good with cats – and this one specifically had an aura about it – something that set it apart from its feline friends.

Walking casually up to the door, she heard a smooth, silky, voice. It was also rather camp.

"Hello Elizabeth."

She stopped, looking around, trying to find the source of the voice – but it was nowhere, and all she could hear was the lack of breeze, and the tweets from the birds, and those random sounds that nature makes. Admitting to herself that it was probably just someone mucking about, she headed to the door, and even got as far as placing a hand on the door handle, before she heard the voice again.

"Oh, come, now, Lizzie."

The voice was surprisingly well spoken. Almost aristocratic in tone, it was smooth and silky, with each letter firmly and clearly pronounced.

"Or, perhaps, aristo-cat-ic."

Lizzie turned to look at the cat up on the wall. It was sat up, now, looking down at her with beautiful, deep amber eyes, the colour of the sun beaming down on them.

"I'm dreadfully sorry. I don't do puns, and I'm never going to try them again."

Lizzie loved that movie. Aristocats. Kind of irrelevant but the black cat reminded her of it. But her mind was wandering – she couldn't restrain it, and she honestly thought she was going mad, because a cat was talking to her.

"Hello, Elizabeth," the cat repeated. "Welcome. Oh, goodness – it is cold out here. I'm sick to death of the rain on this planet. It's always raining. Always. Give me some sun, any day of the week."

"But… it's perfect here?" Lizzie asked, ignoring the blatant absurdity that she was talking to a cat. But she was right – she gazed around her, and could see no fault with the weather. It was stunning – the highs of summer, the sun beating down, the trees in full bloom with swathes of leaves decorating the branches, the flowers brightening up the world with oceans of colour. There was no rain.

"I do not mean the weather," the cat slipped down from its position of height, gracefully leaping down onto the floor, and almost immediately presenting his-self in front of her, those amber, jewel-like eyes gazing up at her.

"My name," the cat held out a paw. "Is Ulysses F. B. Higginsdale Esquire,"

"Hi," Lizzie reached down and took his paw, unaware of what the hell was going on and why the hell she was shaking the hand of a cat. Ulysses, sorry.

"I'm, er, Lizzie," she smiled, though it was not quite as eloquent an introduction as Ulysses.

"I'm your new… what do the youths call it? _Flatmate_ ," Ulysses seemed rather pleased at his use of colloquialisms.

"Erm… awesome," Lizzie nodded. Why was it that the world had been perfectly normal up until she'd had her funny turn at counselling?

Five years since the Doctor, and everything had been perfectly normal. Nothing strange had happened… which for her, was quite amazing. But for some reason, ever since that moment earlier in the day, the world had changed. Something in the air had altered, just slightly.

It was, as she'd told herself, as if she'd been alive, but now, she was truly living.

Cats certainly hadn't been able to talk until now.

"Shall we go up to the palace?" Ulysses suggested. Lizzie hoped he wasn't truly expecting a palace, and she nodded.  
Lizzie and Ulysses, side by side, made their way into the block of flats. Lizzie was ready for, not only her first flat-share, but an actual flat-share with an animal.

***

Aware that she was probably going to every kind of counselling under the sun, Lizzie had been reluctant to do anything else that would supposedly 'help her', but she'd agreed to do this, originally because it had intrigued her.

It was a group – like one of those grief counselling groups, made up of people who have lost close friends and relatives. The sort of groups that met up in town halls and churches and community centres, and drank tea and juice and ate flapjacks.

Except, their group did not talk about grief.

They talked about the supernatural.

Lizzie's stories had proved quite exceptional – nobody else had anything that quite lived up to her tales of the bigger-on-the-inside box, and the magic man who lied inside it.

It was such a friendly little group – nobody questioned anything anyone else said, even though most of it was probably grounds to have someone sectioned. No – everyone in that group accepted everyone else, and nobody questioned the truth of any of their stories. Lizzie loved it – it was not often she'd found a group of people like that.

The chairs in the community centre were always set out in the circle – Jasper, the bearded chap in charge, was a kindly old gentleman. Lizzie had his story a few times now – he had been taken by aliens in the middle of the night, and he could remember what happened – ending up on a spaceship, at the head of an almost… council-like group of people. But he could not remember anything else, apart from the fact it had been an awakening-like experience.

Next to him sat Jac – she was a tough woman, always getting herself into fights. She'd had a daughter – a daughter who had been taken from her and put into care. Except… when she went to visit her for the second time, the house her daughter had been moved from had completely vanished. When she spoke to the authorities, they questioned her, they said there was no such house. And her entire family swore that she'd never had a daughter. Lizzie admired her, for being so strong, even though nobody was on her side.

On the opposite side of the circle sat Chloe – she was an elegant woman, at some point in her 20s, in a very toxic relationship with a man called Max. And she swore blind that skeletons roamed the basement beneath the block of flats she lived in. Chloe was lovely, if a bit mad, and a bit scary at times – but she had beautiful, silky black hair, and precisely cut gold and silver jewellery.

Roger was an older man, who had worked as a caretaker in a school – until he'd had to leave his job, following the ghosts that kept following him. He was a gentle soul, always on hand to reassure Lizzie if ever the world got too tough.  
George was a funny little man who owned a café – he'd battled with drug addiction in the past and had done frequent spells in prison. He frequently riled up many in the group, but he was a strangely charming and humorous man, who Lizzie couldn't help but take to, even if occasionally he repulsed her in every way. Nobody quite knew what he was doing there.

Ken was, again, an older man – a former detective, who'd struggled with loss over the years, and had seen mysterious spirits haunting him. There was Tammy as well – she was a batty old woman, who had never quite recovered following the loss of her husband, but she was almost certain that aliens were locking her out of her block of flats. She provided the tea and the flapjacks, and made lovely jam tarts – and they all loved her, and she often had wise, if unintentionally wise, words to tell them all.

"So," Jasper started, with his usual calm and welcoming town, making all of them feel instantly included. "How are we all?"

There were general nods and hums of 'yeah, we're alright'. 'Nothing much is new'. 'We're all just going on as usual'.

"Who'd like to start off for us today?"

People glanced from one another, but there were no volunteers, so Jasper turned to Jac.

"How is the search for Jessie going, Jac?" he asked. Jac tensed, slightly, and Jasper calmed her down. "Take your time, Jac. We're all friends here."

Jac paused for a moment – everyone was looking her, but they were not preying glares, they were warm and comforting gazes – they all wanted to help her, and to help her find the daughter she'd lost.

"I – I don't know. I've not – not seen her now for two years. Nothing. I can't find anything, and – I – I'm beginning to think I'm at a dead end. I don't think I'm ever going to find her."

There were some sad mutters across the floor, a few sad sighs and general mournful noises, before Lizzie turned to her.

"Don't give up," she said, simply. Although, it didn't make much sense, it had just come to her and she'd said it anyway. "Jessie is still out there."

Jac clearly appreciated it – but it didn't look like it meant anything. But Lizzie felt as if, no matter how much she had heard about how impossible it would ever be for Jac to find her daughter, there was still… something out there. Some possibility.

"There's always… hope, I guess. Sorry, I'll…"

Lizzie's voice sort of trailed off into nothing, and Jasper interrupted.

"No, no, Lizzie," Jasper reassured her. "You're right. Jac – there is always hope."

***

Lizzie had worked out the science behind this. She knew that she either had to arrive early, before anyone else, or later, when many, many people were already around. If she arrived very early, and she were one of the first, she could avoid that awkward lull, when there between 10 and 20 people around, and things hadn't really got going. That would be unbearable for her to even contemplate – though if she arrived later, she wouldavoid the lull altogether, and easily blend in with the crowd.

Because of her recent appointment as 'wing-woman', Lizzie decided to opt for the earlier option, so she could make sure Kym was always being… winged.

Lizzie had made herself look reasonably presentable – Ulysses approved of the hairstyle and the dress and lipstick, saying.

"You look glorious, darling."

"Thanks, Ulysses."

The complement, although it was from a cat, made her feel positive, and confident – tonight was going to be fine. She was going to enjoy herself, and things were going to go brilliantly. She was sort of dangling off the edge of a very tall cliff carved out of fear in terror but on the whole, she was alright.

"What are you doing this evening?" she asked (the cat, who was sat on the sofa nibbling from a silver platter of tuna).

"Alas, a night in, I believe. There is a fascinating documentary on BBC 4, about our relationship with… the others."

Lizzie stopped, and turned to Ulysses, whose once-silky and warm voice turned deadly cold. Something had truly chilled him to his bones, made his exquisite, cat senses alert. Something beyond comprehension, something truly terrifying.

She was about to ask him what he meant, when he explained.

"Dogs can be the most ferocious animals."

Lizzie sighed with relief, and turned to the door. "Have fun."

"You too, my darling. Go! Mingle with the humans! Drink cheap beer and cheap spirits! I believe I am more of a _Sauvignon_ feline myself…"

***

When Lizzie arrived, thankfully she had proceeded the pre-party lull of social awkwardness. She was, in fact, the first, other than Kym, of course, meaning that although present for the pre-party lull, she was bedded into the occasion, and was not expected to attempt making any kind of conversation.

Kym had already started setting up – a row of trestle tables had been established against one wall, rows of bottles of booze lined neatly up, along with plastic cups. One could not say that Kym didn't know how to throw a party – the place was ready for what, Lizzie was sure, would turn into a very raucous time.

"So," Kym turned to her. "You stick with me, okay, and I'll make sure you're not intimidated by everyone. Then, in return, you make me look cool."

"Okay," Lizzie agreed, even though she didn't have a clue how to make her look cool.

Before long, some guests started arriving, in dribs and drabs – "help yourself to drinks" and "more people will be arriving soon" were bungled about, and Kym started off the playlist, at a fairly low volume – though everyone knew it would not stay like that for long.

About half an hour after Lizzie had first arrived, the first big group turned up. Big meaning enough people to take up half the flat – and all of them carrying crates of all kinds of alcohol, dumping them on the trestle tables. Kym notched the music up a bit, the lights were dimmed even further, and she even switched on some strobe lights –

And before Lizzie knew it, there were more and more people turning up. Huge groups at a time, cramming themselves through the door and into the flat. It was a bottleneck, with everyone slowly spilling in, but completely engulfing the entire flat. Though the flat seemed to be like the TARDIS – every time a massive group of millions of people Lizzie hadn't even seen before, let alone met, Lizzie always thought that the flat could not take anymore. But always she was wrong, for only minutes later another group would arrive, and would find space in the flat.

The volume of the music rose, and strobe lights were flickering around the room, great searchlights of red and green and orange, searching out for people dancing and drinking, searching out for them and their bids to find as much happiness as they could. The night was still young, and the lights would not stop flickering forever yet.

More and more people, unknown faces – random Facebook friends lists, all with random faces and random names, and yet all at this one celebration. Wherever Lizzie turned, there were people – cliched though it were, the only way to describe them would be sardines in a tin, as the hundreds (and there must have been hundreds in that tiny flat), were crammed tight, bodies up close, each tasting of sweat and beer and cigarettes, and of that typical early-twenty-ish smell.

Lizzie blinked, and a stubbly face was right up in front of her, and she was staring straight at him. She blinked again, and there was a woman with impossibly long eyelashes. Another blink, and a man with great gold sunglasses and gold chains of 'bling' – so much it almost formed robes on him.

She glanced at her watch, and it was only half nine, and she cringed, realising that this was the sort of thing that didn't end _ever_. This would be a perpetual fate – condemned to spending at least the next 12 hours in this one flat with these people. It was dark outside, and suddenly she felt even more claustrophobic, trapped into a tiny space with so many, many people.

Again, more bodies, dancing through the door, with more alcohol. A group were arriving now, already screaming at the top of their lungs – the lads were here, and they seemed to have already been on a pub crawl of half of London before turning up to this. Kym yelled in happiness, running over to them and giving a rather beefy looking skinhead a noogie.

"OH! MY! GOODNESS! GRACIOUS! DOO DAA! YOU CAME."

"I wouldn't have been anywhere else -"

The noise was unbearable now – the sound of the music reached deep into her ears, filling up her brain right from the middle. On top of the enormous, thumping base, was the constant hubbub of people having to shout over the songs – loud cries of people desperate to communicate, but held back by straining throats and slurred syntax.

She watched Kym 'bantering' with the lads who arrived, and glanced over at people pouring drinks from the trestle tables (one of which somebody was already dancing on top of – the same table did not look as if it would hold up much longer), and she felt that music, pulsing like a ferocious migraine deep in her head, and then

And then she stopped.

Somebody else had come in with the rowdy, riotous lads – somebody who didn't seem to quite fit, as if somebody had taken a piece from one jigsaw, and tried to place it right in the middle of another. It was as if he were an outsider, who had just blundered into the world from nowhere in particular, and were still trying to get used to it.

His face said the same – it was a mix of confusion, and 'oh god kill me now', and a deep anxiety as well. Unlike his pals, he wasn't shouting or screaming or throwing bottles of beer around, and he seemed as if he'd been the designated driver on the pub crawl his mates had been on.

Their eyes met.

Ooh. That was exciting, and weird, and she had to rewind her mind because it was getting ahead of itself – yes, that was right – their eyes had met.

It wasn't only exciting – great explosions of euphoria were engulfing her mind, forcibly evicting social anxiety and letting fascination and fantasies and happiness move in. When their eyes met, a connection had been made – some beam of mutual understanding transmitted across the dense party atmosphere between both of them. Electricity and fireworks, a volatility Lizzie hadn't ever experienced before, violently uprooting a state of reasonable emotional stability and detonating it in a great explosion of a kind of mental, sugary, sweeter-than-sweetness. She hung onto it, that taste of heaven – a taste from a once-distant land, that finally she had reached.

Except she wasn't looking at him, she was awkwardly looking down at her battered old converse, because even though she had a nice-ish dress the old converse were the only pair of shoes she owned, and suddenly a great tsunami of self-consciousness submerged her. Lizzie was drowning in it, the fear of being judged filling her lungs, and she could feel herself going into respiratory failure –

Before she decided that it didn't matter.

What was the point? This was probably just… some weird glitch or something. It had been a bizarre day, and perhaps this was just keeping with the theme.

Then she saw she was looking at him again – and he was looking at her. Just another broken glance between two people that didn't know each other – but again, that connection seemed to heal the broken-ness of the gaze between them.

Okay. Definitely not a glitch.

But it didn't matter, she told herself. Why should it? She was happy as she was, and she didn't need to change for anyone. Lizzie took a deep breath – her mind was getting carried away.

But Lizzie looked away again, and then back at him. And he was doing the same – interchanging glances between the floor and the night and each other.

It was almost as if…

Did she dare to…

She wasn't…

"Lizzington! COME HERE NOW!" a loud cry came from across the flat, and suddenly the moment was gone. Kym was waving frantically at her, a kind of 'please come here now so I don't miss out on this chance' kind of wave. Lizzie did as she was told, but still trying to keep a firm look on him, making sure she'd be able to find him again in the masses. Except – she wasn't scared – she didn't think he'd be hard to find again.

Lizzie trailed over to Kym, who was talking to a bulky man with a leather jacket displaying the entirety of his chest. At the same time, Lizzie was still keeping both eyes focused on _him_.

"This," Kym gestured to Lizzie. "Is my babe, Lizzie. She keeps me sane, because I'm a bit mad –"

"–she's not really," Lizzie awkwardly interrupted, and Kym gave her a 'this is really great, keep going' kind of smile. "Kym is lovely – such a laugh, always, and…"

The smile turned into a 'this isn't an effing business pitch' kind of smile, and Lizzie scowled at her, and Kym scowled back, and they were locked in a standoff of scowling, all while Lizzie's eyes were still wandering, making sure that _he_ with his astonishing eyes and their amazing connection was still somewhere insight. He was – and again, another half-glance between the two of them. He smiled at her, and through some kind of automatic reflex she just couldn't stop her lips curling up into a smile as well.

"Yeah. This is Kym. She's amazing and my best friend," Lizzie diffused the tension, admiring her UN-inspired social diplomacy.

It seemed to be working – Kym's new beau (eww, Lizzie vowed never to use that word again) laughed, and not a laugh suggesting that he was merely chuckling to make things less awkward. He was enjoying himself, and Kym and Lizzie turned to each other and gave each other optical high-fives.

Lizzie turned, and _he_ was looking at her, still with that flirtatious smile – except it wasn't flirtatious, no. No, that was too cheesy. Cringeworthy. Whoever he was, he was the sort of guy that would maybe try a pick-up line ironically, because it would be impossible for him to even pull off one smoothly – the sort of guy who knew it was beyond the realms of possibility for him to even attempt anything like that and not look stupid.

Before she knew it, she was drifting away from Kym, despite pledging herself as wing-woman. Leaving behind small-talk and false smiles, leaving behind swathes of insecurity. She wasn't walking towards _him_ , yet – but again, they were back in that cycle, of interchangeable glances. Whenever she looked at him, anxieties disappeared, in just those seconds of magic that flared between them.

It was a conversation between their eyes – and it was more of a conversation than Lizzie felt she'd had in… in ever. He would say something to her, just in a look, and she would respond, just by channeling this unearthly visual force in a specific way, and like that, they were speaking.

Words did not matter now – there was something beyond that, a connecting force, something impossible that Lizzie had always known about, but hadn't experienced properly until now.

And then

"Hey," he stumbled over his words, as if he were still trying to get to grips with how normal people communicated. The absence of awkwardness from before had vaporised, and suddenly they were both brought crushingly back down to Earth, having to do what normal people did.

Talk.

"Erm… hello," she said, looking awkwardly at the floor, and not really at him. When she did look briefly up, she blushed, but it was alright because he was looking at the floor as well.

"I'm Leo," he said, and Lizzie repeated it over in her head. Yeah… it suited him. "Leo Akram."

"Lizzie," she told him, and he nodded approvingly, not that there was anything to approve of, it was more of a nod to try and kill that dreadful tension between them. "Darwin."

"It's a beautiful name," Leo tried his hand at a complement, but it was a bit stupid because it wasn't really anything she could do anything about, whether he liked it or not.

"Thanks… I guess…"

A painfully awkward silence followed, and Lizzie could see that internally, they were both scrambling for something to say to make things just that bit more…

"Sorry," Leo shook his head, grinning. "Let's start again. Hello Lizzie. My name is Leo."

"Hello Leo," she held out a hand, before thinking that just looked really stupid and formal and… stupid covered it. Then it was as if he saw her internal monologue retching at her handling of the social situation, because he reciprocated the handshake, and although it was awkward it was… strangely charming.

"I can't do social situations," Leo proclaimed. "I just sort of… fall over things and stuff. Yeah…"

"Neither can I," Lizzie admitted, feeling much more at ease that he was just as socially inept as she was. It didn't help that the only way they could communicate with each other was by shouting, really loudly.

Leo was reading her mind, as suddenly he gestured towards the door of the balcony. "You wanna go outside?"

Lizzie nodded, and the two of them made their way past several very-drunk bodies sprawled out all over the floor, bleating out the words to LMFAO's Party Rock Anthem, with the repeated calls for "shufflin'" coming out as nothing more than intoxicated jumbles of sounds.

***

Lizzie shut the door behind them, to try and block off as much of the noise as possible. Leo started saying something, but as he had become so adapted to having to speak at a good few decibels louder, he spoke way too loudly. Lizzie let out an impromptu laugh at the hilarity, and Leo gave her a jokey glare, before he laughed along as well.

"Not really my scene, this," Lizzie gestured to the chaos in the flat behind them, while looking out at the moon ahead of her. Just like the daytime, the nights here were perfect. There was that bracing chill in the air – a chill almost comforting, in a way. There were no clouds in the sky, and galaxies were visible from that tall tower-block.

"Me neither," Leo admitted. "I only came because they wanted a wing-man…"

"Same… well, not a wing-man, but –"

"Yeah, I get you," Leo laughed. "I guess I've… always been a bit of a misfit."

Lizzie nodded, trying to play it cool, even though she hadn't identified with anything more than him ever. She took a seat in an old deckchair, so she could look out over the sky. Leo found another, and he did the same, so they sat side by side.

"Now this," Leo leaned back. "Is my kind of scene."

A cautious girl at heart, Lizzie was not the sort of person to jump to conclusions, which is why she was so shocked when her brain started going 'I want to spend the rest of my life with this random guy that I just met'.

Except it didn't feel too unusual – because her thoughts were grounded. There was something with him that she hadn't experienced with anyone else before – something that made her realise that she could not let him go.

The awkward silence had evaporated at the sight of the moon. They were both content in each other's company.

"You know," Leo eventually said. "It's times like this that I'd love to be able to make really meaningful conversation about this unearthly experience I'm having but I just… can't."

She related so much it was unbelievable.

"Same," she laughed. "I can't do the whole… talking to people thing."

"Any and every social encounter," Leo started. "I just try and get it over as quickly as possible."

"The worst are things like… hairdressers," Lizzie thought back to how much she appreciated the fact that hair growth was all distorted in the TARDIS. "Because you actually have to sit there with a complete stranger and talk to them and it is the worst thing ever."

"Agreed," Leo turned to her, sitting up in the deckchair. "But you do that thing, right, where you're talking to someone really important but you just don't know what to say, and you panic for hours afterwards about how rude and horrible you must have come across?"

"All the time," Lizzie sighed in relief, relishing in the fact she had met a newfound social outcast.

And the two of them carried on like it, for hours, just talking randomly about how much neither of them could function in the real world – and about all sorts of other completely unrelated stuff, all by the light of the night sky. Random, meaningless conversation, but a pointlessness bringing two people together. And they laughed, so loudly they worried they would wake up the people in the rest of the block.

Neither of them had laughed so much in a long, long time.

When the conversations stopped, there were silences, but their individual silences were now united in one, mutual silence – mutual understanding and respect.

There was a togetherness between the two of them.

"Lizzie," Leo eventually said, and his voice changed. He was being serious now. "I would really like to see you again."

And then the body hit the glass behind them.

***

It wasn't quite as dramatic as Lizzie had first thought.

Life in the TARDIS had trained her to expect the most terrifying and melodramatic from every situation, as if it were an automatic reflex. She had practised it so many times now that even five years after the Doctor, it still controlled her.

It was just Kym, being very, very drunk. She was pressed right up to the glass, peering out at them, before eventually she found the door handle. She opened the door, and flopped out face-first onto the floor of the balcony, arms waving in a kind of drunk flail, landing face-first in a plant pot that looked as if it hadn't been used for many years. She did not stand up.

Leo started laughing, and Lizzie also found the situation strangely hilarious, if a little worrying.

"Face plant," Leo giggled to himself, pointing at the plant pot and at Kym's drunken form, rather pleased with his own pun. Lizzie gave him a glare, trying not to laugh, but she couldn't stop. It wasn't even the pun that was that amusing.  
Lizzie stood up and walked over to Kym, kneeling down beside the remains of her sobriety.

"Kym?" Lizzie shouted into her ear.

There was a loud mumble, more like a series of loud grumbling sounds, almost like a broken engine trying to start up, and eventually Kym managed to form words from the shambles of half-letters.

"N… n….. th…. Ee….. d…sh…..t"

Lizzie helped Kym up from the plant pot, sitting upright against the balcony barrier, wiping a bit of trailing soil from her ruby-red lipstick.

"What was that?" Lizzie asked.

"NO NEED TO SHOUT! OH HEllo my voice worked that time," Kym's voice dwindled off into the night, leaving a peculiar, eerie, but definitely not romantic silence. "Oh my god," Kym spluttered.

Fright and trepidation crept on to Kym's expression, and for once in her life, she was lost for words. At a loss for whatever the matter could be, Lizzie decided to try and help her up, and she took her hand.

Kym did not come up – however, the entire contents of her night's drinking did. All over Lizzie's shoes.

Lizzie did not let go of Kym's hand. She stood there, perfectly emotionless, trying to somehow work out what had actually just happened. Kym looked strangely content, at least, and that seemed to be most of the vomit. Lizzie looked down, to see whether the shoes would be salvageable (the answer being no), and grimaced when she remembered that they were the only pair of shoes she owned.

Leo was sat on his deckchair, chuckling quiet to himself, and Lizzie gave him a look, and he shut up instantly.

"You want help getting inside her?" Leo stood up to help her, and then realised Lizzie was staring at him. "I mean – I mean getting her inside."

He had an awkward inability to talk without using innuendo.

"Yeah… thanks," Lizzie tried to look grateful for the help. They both took one of Kym's arms, and carried her between the two of them.

***

The inside of Kym's flat looked like a crime scene.

Many of the partygoers had vacated, leaving glass bottles and cans and plastic cups and… all sorts of other things one could imagine twenty-somethings leaving behind at a party, all over the floor and the tables and Kym's shelf of chick-flicks.

There were a few bodies, sprawled here and there all over the floor, some murmuring in some alien, slurred language. When Lizzie and Leo dropped Kym on the sofa (they'd originally put her on a chair, as they had to turn the sofa the right way around again), they shooed out a few of the stragglers (many of whom needed quite a shooing, as they were drunk to the point of which the last five years or so were probably just a blurred memory).

Three o'clock in the morning. Surprisingly early. Perhaps they were aging.

The place was still a complete tip. The Doctor had shown her warzones that looked, at least, vaguely more intact that Kym's flat.

Kym also looked as if she were about to be a sick again. She looked very ill in general.

"I can't leave her here," Lizzie shook her head, wondering what her next course of action she should take. There was only one viable option, and it made her stomach crawl out of fear and anxiety.

She'd have to come downstairs and stay with her for the remainder of the night.

"We'll take her downstairs to mine," Lizzie said, reaching out for Kym again. Lizzie and Leo reinstated the carrying technique they'd established before, and half-dragged Kym out of the flat.

***

 _"YOUR STARE WAS HOLDING_

 _"RIPPED JEANS, SKIN WAS SHOWING_

 _"HOT NIGHT, WIND WAS BLOWING–"_

"How are we going to get her down the bloody stairs?" Leo grumbled, when he saw the great flight ahead of him. In the claustrophobic feeling of the small hours, and under the plastered cries of Kym's rendition of _Call Me Maybe_ , the challenge seemed almost impossible. It was a descend to hell, that could only end in pain and misery and suffering for all of them. It was a descend they had no choice but to face. For Lizzie and Leo, and their new friendship, this was the greatest challenge that they'd ever had to face so far. In the darkness of the night, and the eeriness of the great block of flats, it seemed like the greatest challenge they ever would face.

"Hmm…" Lizzie pondered. Kym was approaching the chorus, and by the sounds of it, she was building up for a real belter. "You take the legs. I'll take the arms. We'll go backwards."

Leo shrugged a 'works for me' kind of shrug, and did as he was told. Then they began the perilous journey. The great anthem of banshees was echoing throughout the midst of the tower block.

 _"HEY! I JUST MET YOU!_

 _"AND THIS IS CRAZY_

 _"SO HERE'S MY NUMBER –"_

"Just go a bit to the left," Lizzie ordered, as she was coming into close contact with the wall of the narrow stairwell. The bloodcurdling screams were on a level of terrifying neither Lizzie or Leo had been expecting. "Wait…"

Lizzie had to recalculate. "My left, sorry. Your right."

Leo sighed, a grim, yet determined look twisting its way into his features. He complied, however, and the expedition continued, the two of them holding fearless as to whatever may await them next.

Thankfully, the rest of the crossing was less hazardous than it was when it had begun. They continued as previously, sending instructions to one-another, to make the passage of their intoxicated friend as comfortable as possible. They only dropped her twice.

When they reached their destination, they laid her down against the wall, and started to take deep, heaving breaths, trying to make up for everything lost.

And they both started to laugh.

In sync, at exactly the same time, creasing and having to take even deeper breaths because of the amount of air forced out in great bursts of hilarity – the two of them collapsed onto the floor at the bottom of the stairs, completely in awe at how ridiculous the situation was.

***

 _"PARTY EVERYDAY – P – P – P – PARTY EVERYDAY –"_

Finally, Kym was sprawled out on Lizzie's sofa, and in the recovery position (Leo had insisted, to make sure that she didn't choke on her vomit or anything – neither of them had thought she had completely emptied her system yet).

Lizzie offered to make Leo a drink, but said she only had tea, and he was cool with that – except he didn't want to stay, because it was already late. She was terrified, just for a few seconds, that she'd put him off her, because of their preposterous adventure.

"Nothing to do with all this or anything," Leo reassured her. "I'm just… thing is, Lizzie –"

Lizzie waited in bated, fearful breath.

"I'm a real lightweight and I need sleep."

 _Thank god_.

So, she walked him to her door.

"Thanks for… such a good first… encounter," Leo stumbled over trying to find the right words. Lizzie suddenly found herself looking at the floor again, retreating back into herself.

"Yeah it was…"

 _"I'VE GOT A FEELING! WOOOOHOOOOO. THAT TONIGHT'S GONNA BE A GOOD NIGHT. THAT TONIGHT'S GONNA BE A GOOD NIGHT. THAT TONIGHT'S GONNA BE A GOOD GOOD NIGHT."_

Leo started to laugh, and Lizzie stepped out of her flat so they could talk without being interrupted by Kym's choruses.

"As I said. It's been awesome," Leo said.

"Yeah. Really… really cool."

"You want to do this again?" Leo asked. "I mean," he backtracked straight away. "Not dragging drunk people down stairwells or anything, but –"

"Yes," Lizzie interrupted. "Yes, I would."

They swapped numbers, and then there was a bit of an awkward encounter, because Leo didn't have a clue what he was doing, awkwardly verging between hugging and kissing her on the cheek and doing nothing, and Lizzie didn't know what he was doing either, so eventually they went for the cheek-kiss.

"Night," he said his goodbyes, and she watched him disappear down the stairs.

Then she turned back to her flat, and back to Kym's version of _I've Gotta Feeling_.

***

 _The three of them knew what they had to do._

 _It was silent in the Doctor's TARDIS, and the only light came from the console. If one were to look in on the scene, they would perhaps expect the room to be empty. And they would not be far wrong – for the three women in the console room that day, it felt empty. Because the Doctor was gone, trapped far across the universe._

 _The only people who were visible in the light of that TARDIS console, were Lizzie Darwin, Cioné, and Iris, stood apart from each other in a triangle-like shape. And as they did so, they felt united – because they were going to do this. The work had been done. He had been located – the Doctor was on a planet called Lonely, a distant, rocky outcrop of a planet, right on the edge of the universe, devoid of all life. Or at least, it had been, until the Doctor had been trapped there._

 _The three of them were ready to save him._

 _And it wasn't just the Doctor that they would be saving. Because in taking back the Doctor, they would be standing up to the governments and the oppressors, who ruined lives, and they would be making sure that nobody would ever have to suffer at those hands again. They weren't just saving a man, they were leading a revolution._

 _But above all, they were saving their family. Not so long ago, the Doctor had lost all of his friends. Lizzie had been a lonely little girl on Earth. Cioné had been alone in her fight to escape the war. And Iris had brought them together. Now that the three of those women knew the importance of having those they loved around them, they knew that for all the reasons to do this, saving their best friend, their husband, and their dad, was the most important._

 _They were the Doctor's family, and so they were going to do what a family should._

 _Help._

 _The three of them, without speaking, placed their hands on the dematerialisation lever, and after nodding at each other, they pulled it, and the TARDIS began on its journey to Lonely._

 _And so it was, that three women began on their quest._

 _Three good women went to war._

***

"So… you went to a birthday party?" Mary asked her. They were sat on the wooden swing seat in the garden.

"Don't sound so surprised," Lizzie joked, even though Mary didn't actually sound that surprised.

"I'm not!" Mary laughed. "But Lizzie – this is truly bloody brilliant progress! You're getting out and about. And did you enjoy it?"

Lizzie didn't even need to think – the words just left her straight away, as it was a feeling so natural and instinctive to her. "Yes."

Mary was visibly taken aback this time, however. "And is there… anything else?"

Like the mystic Meg she was, Mary knew whenever something was wrong. Lizzie was going to take great pleasure (in a good way) in telling her that for once, something was right.

"Okay…" Lizzie tried to think of how to tell her. She hadn't actually told anyone. It sounded weird putting it into words, as if it were too cliched.

Mary waited, in bated breath.

 _"Dinner…"_

 _Leo sat down opposite her._

 _"Yeah," Lizzie replied, trying not to sound too surprised. It was still a shock to her as well, even after talking it over with Mary earlier. It was suitably reassuring that Leo was also reasonably surprised that he was on a date._  
 _Except this time, there were no walls to hide behind. No walls of stars or night skies or carrying singing drunk people down the stairs. This time, she would have to face him, and they would have to talk like normal, human beings._

 _How hard could it be?_

 _She'd managed it years ago, when she used to work in the café._

 _That was small talk, though. That was behind a mask…_

 _"Okay look," Leo admitted. "I know we're both terrified. And it was alright when we were dealing with drunk singing people and stuff. And I'll admit I googled ice breakers before I arrived but I couldn't find anything apart from wink murder, which I didn't think would be a very good thing to play in a restaurant. Sooo… er… sorry," he laughed._

 _"It's fine," Lizzie felt better. "I just… haven't done this before."_

 _"Nope… neither have I."_

"And, last time you saw him…" Mary was just a little bit confused at how they had met… and the circumstances which had befallen them going out to dinner together.

"It was alright last time," Lizzie sat, playing with her hands and not looking at anyone. "We had… things to deal with. But we actually had to do normal things this time. And… we don't actually know anything about each other."

 _"You know," Leo said, sitting back. "It's just occurred to me that we don't actually know anything about each other."_

 _Lizzie shook her head. It hadn't really seemed like a problem… they'd sort of instinctively glossed over it. "So… who are you?"_

 _Leo pretended to straighten his jacket and bowtie, and ended up looking a bit stupid. "Well," he began sarcastically, as if he had a lot to say about himself. "My name is Leonardo Akram. I cannot function socially, and I write articles and interview people for a living."_

 _"… you're a journalist?" Lizzie asked. Her English teacher once said she could go into journalism, but the ferocity of the industry terrified her._

 _"Ha… no. It's for this nerdy website and for some film magazines."_

 _"Ah. Who were you named after?" she asked suddenly, in an attempt to make conversation._

 _"My mum likes to pretend she's into art but really, my dad just liked Teenage Mutant Nina Turtles."_

 _Lizzie laughed, not sure whether he was being serious or not._

 _"My dad even had the first comic. Had to sell it, though. So…," Leo said, clearly trying to change the subject. "What about you?"_

"And that's where the problems lied. Me… talking about myself."

Mary looked at her, as if she were being stupid. Lizzie knew she didn't actually think that, she was just good at making it look like she did.

"You'll get there. It'll take time, and quite frankly, coming out of my shell is one of the hardest things I've done."

"Yeah, but I didn't have anything to say. That I used to travel with an alien in a blue box?"

"You're a person beyond that, though."

Lizzie thought about it and couldn't think of anything. The sum total of her life was nothing – and then the Doctor had come along and shown her something else. A brand-new universe.

… maybe not, though.

There was Leo. And… Kym, and stupid birthday parties and shoes covered in vomit. And all those other things that actually, she quite liked.

"Maybe I am," Lizzie shrugged, though she wasn't at all sure.

"What did you say, then?" Mary asked, as if she expected Lizzie to script it all out, or do a drawing or something.

 _"I can't even understand_ my _own drawing," Leo sat back, admiring his handiwork. The post-it note stuck to Lizzie's head showed… something, at least._

 _"I've always wanted to be able to draw," Lizzie looked glumly at her post-it note stuck to Leo's forehead._

"Pictionary?!" Kym exclaimed, when Lizzie saw her later that day for a post-date catch-up. She was drinking some disgusting looking smoothie thing. "You played Pictionary with him when he asked you about yourself?"

"I didn't know what to say. My life is boring and I said we should play Pictionary...," Lizzie's voice dwindled off into the absurdity of the date night.

"Well, I have to admire your… creativity, I guess. If that's what works for you, then whatevs. Cool."

"Thank you," Lizzie took a sip from her tea, Ulysses purring quietly on her lap.

 _"Am I an animal?" Leo said. On this god-knows-what go._

 _"No!" Lizzie sighed. She'd guessed hers' ages ago, and was now forced to endure Leo's inability when it came to playing Pictionary. "You're not an animal. Or a mode of transport. Or a food."_

 _"Can I give up?" Leo's hands reached up to his forehead, but at the sight of Lizzie's glare he instantly dropped them back down again._

"So you were sat in an actual proper restaurant… playing Pictionary?"

"I had some post-it notes in my bag, and a marker pen. It seemed like a good idea."

"It worked, didn't it?"

"Yes…"

"And did he come back to yours? Or vice versa?"

Ulysses stirred, and Lizzie started to run a hand gently across his silky fur.

"I have not yet met Elizabeth's new gentleman caller," Ulysses growled a posh, sophisticated growl into Lizzie's shirt sleeve.

 _"Am I… a Morris dancer?"_

 _"You're not any form of dancer!"_

 _The two of them were stumbling along the streets, and it wasn't as if they'd had anything to drink. Apart from two, very, very strong coffees. They were lightweights at heart. Leo tripped over a bench (twice – once over the first leg and again over the second) and eventually, Lizzie and Leo arrived somewhere. A great big lion was staring down at them._

 _"Ohmygod," Leo gasped when he realised where they were. "This is Trafalgar Square?"_

 _"Yeah…," Lizzie realised, sitting down, her back against the lion's pedestal._

 _"Oh! Oh!" Leo jumped up and down, as if he'd just realised what his picture was. "Am I Lord Nelson?"_

 _"No. But good guess."_

 _"So I'm close?" he said, climbing onto the back of the big lion that people weren't allowed to climb on top of._

 _"Nope," Lizzie laughed. "But I'm a history graduate, so it was a good guess."_

 _Leo cursed, several drunken, coffee-inspired curse words._

 _"Hey, Liz," he looked down at her from the lion. He was riding it as if it were a horse. "Mount me."_

 _There was a terrifyingly awkward silence._

 _"… I did not mean that. I mean the lion – the lion, that's… that's what I meant."_

 _The child in her giggled. She stopped herself from giggling, because he couldn't be serious, and then she looked up at his broad grin, and burst into fits of laugher again. He was holding out a hand for her, beckoning for her to join him on the great cat._

 _Lizzie stood up, and looked up at him apprehensively, before looking out at the silence. It was late now – only a few stragglers were left, wandering around the square._

 _She gestured for him to shuffle backwards, and he did so. Then, she hopped on front of the big cat._

 _Lizzie held onto the mane, as if they would start moving, and she could be left behind – and she didn't want to be left behind. She could imagine what it would be like, if the big cat started to move. If suddenly, it raised its head, and gave a quiet purr. And then, it would unfurl itself from its pedestal, and start to slink its way across Trafalgar Square, with the two of them on the back._

 _And they would be able to go anywhere._

 _When she blinked, though, she was still there. Exactly where she'd been before. Instinctively, she stroked the lion's mane, and she sat back. Leo was supporting himself by holding onto her shoulders – and they were okay, up on top of the big cat._

 _"Who am I?" Leo asked. It came across as deep, and poetic – someone who had become lost over the years, someone who didn't know who they truly were, and someone who was intent on finding themselves –_

 _And someone who had lost at Pictionary._

 _"I'm not telling you," Lizzie said, as Leo hopped off the lion. He helped her down, and they sat at the foot of the steps of the square._

 _"Oh come on! You can't not tell me now!"_

 _Lizzie peeled the post-it note from his forehead, a few rogue hairs becoming stuck to it._

 _"You have to guess," she pocketed it. A post-it note, forever reminding her of the future, until eventually, Leo Akram could guess what it said._

 _Leo sighed, but he knew there was no way of getting around it._

 _"One day… you'll get it. One day."_

***

 _The fields stretched on for as far as Lizzie could see. It was a lifeless place. When she looked down at the ground beneath her feet, she realised that it was not a rich, healthy soil, in which plants could grow, one that would crumble softly to the touch. Instead, it was arid, and brittle, and thin, somewhere between sand and dirt and dust. Perhaps plants had grown their once, but now it seemed as if a drought had arrived, and choked all life from it. The decay echoed for miles and miles around her, eventually merging with the horizon of the bone-white sky._

 _Their target was a sturdy, stone brick tower, like the sort from a fairytale. Ivy grew down the outside walls, interwoven with pink and purple flowers, contrasting against the stony bleakness of the plains surrounding it. Other than the tower, there was nothing to be seen. In any normal situation, it would not be too far to reach, and they would sort out this situation with ease._

 _However, there was a sea of people between them and the tower._

 _There were so many of them, crammed into tight rows – gunmen and swordsmen, dressed in leathers and steel, wielding their blades and their semi-automatics, ready to pulverise whatever they were up against. There were thousands, and thousands, and thousands of these soldiers, spilling on far behind the tower. Some of them were on horseback – great steeds with terrifying metal armour. Some of them bore men with spears and lances and bazookas, a mishmash of old technology and new – there were handguns and knives and razors and pistols and revolvers and pikes and harpoons. Tanks rolled into gear, and above their heads, helicopters and planes and spaceships whizzed. At the head of the huge army they were faced with hordes of angry (and hungry) hounds and wolves, sharp teeth ready to tear into enemy meat, and beside them were great black bears, their claws capable of tearing through metal._

 _And at the fore, striding out ahead of her people, was Evangeline Cullengate, looking an outlier in her blue dress and pearls, her two kindly golden retrievers beside her._

 _It was silent on the battlefield._

 _Lizzie, Iris and Cioné stood alone against all of it._

 _"Do you think we've bitten off rather a bit too much?" Cioné mused, as she took in the true extent of the army._

 _Lizzie and Iris looked at each other._

 _There was a flicker of doubt between the three of them. Okay - quite huge amounts of doubt. None of them had expected this. And that was when the despair kicked in._

 _The Doctor was trapped in that tower. And there was no way they could get him out._

 _But then their fortunes, somehow, began to change._

 _In seconds, the three of them were flanked by battalions of men and women, all of them armed, dressed in a uniform emblazoned with the logo of the ShadowStar Alliance. Elle Mthembu headed them up, and her husband, Jarvis, stood beside her. From the sky, ShadowStar spaceships flocked down, and over the heads of the enemy, who turned and gazed up in awe, to see them as they rocketed past. When they looked back, the armies of the ShadowStar Alliance were joined by thousands more – soldiers dressed in surprisingly little, but for a few pads of thick, hardened leather, each of them wielding blades of some kind, and shields too. Queen Cleopatra stood at the head of her Egyptian army, and walked to wait with Lizzie._

 _"There are more," Cleopatra spoke simply._

 _Only a few seconds later, the ShadowStar and the Egyptians were joined by neat blocks of soldiers in attack formation, in their steel and red fabrics blazing against the monochrome of the landscape, with tall, body-sized shields and stubby swords. Romans, from Cleo's alliance with Egypt. Lizzie glanced to her left, and noticed three women stood beside her, each wielding crossbows and ready to use them – it was the Hunters of Artemis, and Jada, Chasya and Fortuna were ready. DI Ronnie Wolfe stood beside them, along with Inspector Kido, and Dr Siddiqui glanced at his computer screen, from which he had a few tricks up his sleeve. A few squadrons of futuristic UNIT soldiers later, headed by Jo Stewart, and their army was ready._

 _Lizzie turned to face them all. All of the people she'd met on her adventures, all of them gathered to help her. All of them gathered to help the Doctor. Lizzie understood, then, that people loved him. They owed so much to him, and they were determined to help him he needed it. After all... there would come days when everyone needed help. And today, it was the Doctor's. As Lizzie looked at the army behind her, hope sprang up in her heart again. Because they could do this. No matter what Cullengate threw at them, they could defeat her._

 _"What are you all doing here?" she asked Elle._

 _"The Doctor is in trouble," Elle shrugged, as if it was the most obvious thing. "You didn't even need to ask for our help."_

 _Then, Elle turned to the army, and called "Ready?"_

 _"Ready," cried the ShadowStar, the Egyptians, the Romans and UNIT._

 _"Ready," the two detectives cocked their revolvers._

 _"Ready," Jada raised her crossbow, and Chasya and Fortuna loaded their bows._

 _And finally, Lizzie turned to face Cioné and Iris. In knowledge of who they were saving, and in hope of getting through the battle alive, they all said, in unison,_

 _"Ready."_

 _The battle began._

***

For some, they may have said life ticked on as normal. However, as Lizzie decided that 'normal' made it sound boring, mundane, average – but that wasn't what it was at all.

Her life took on a new form, a form that still felt, to her, strangely distant, as if it wasn't truly her experiencing it, and she was instead observing someone else live this happy life she was being accustomed to. However, she decided not to dwell on it too much, as if somehow, thinking bad thoughts would make her lose all of it.

She saw Leo again. They saw some dreadful film together, but it didn't matter – the film went over both of their heads, because they were both too petrified about coming across as too casual, or too uptight, and so both of them just came across as too awkward. When they left the cinema, a thunderstorm had broken out, and rain lashed down from the skies. Lizzie was stupid enough not to bring an umbrella, and Leo hadn't even brought a coat, so they made the decision that the best thing they could do was chance it, and dash to the tube station which involved running through two streets. Lizzie, who hated any kind of exercise, had become too unfit for words in the five years since the Doctor – running down corridors was the only kind of exercise she enjoyed.

It was a bad decision, as they were both soaked through (Leo especially) about 30 metres from the cinema. Thankfully, Lizzie had spotted a bus shelter at the end of the road when they'd arrived, and so she pulled them both inside of it, a bunker to take refuge from the downpour.

Through chatters of teeth, Leo managed to splutter an "oh my god", and it seemed he was violently shivering. Lizzie, therefore, took off her coat, and wrapped it around him. He was _freezing_.

"S – s – sorry, I – I – I – I'm stupid, I kn – know."

Lizzie smiled, but hid it. "Yep."

"Didn't – didn't br – bring an umbre – umbrella, though."

"Thanks."

"N – no problem."

They could talk, interestingly. Which wasn't a very interesting observation, of course, for the majority of people on planet Earth. However, for two individuals who could barely talk to themselves, holding a conversation that was not only quickfire but also _flirtatious_ was a remarkable feat. Both of them had, of course, realised what an impossibility it was, and so they seemed determined to hold onto each other for as long as possible.

Except, the thing that was truly magical, was that their silences were not awkward. Lizzie decided that should be the true yardstick of a relationship – could you be silent with them _without_ the silence becoming icky.

As Lizzie watched him shiver, she realised that for once, there was somebody who understood her. It was like their brains were connected by some invisible string, and their thoughts flowed through it, intermingling with each other, making her almost telepathic to him, and him almost telepathic to her. Admittedly, she had dreamed, all her life, of having somebody she could talk to – somebody who would understand what she was going through every day. Leo could do that – and even if he couldn't, he listened, and he accepted, and perhaps that was just as good.

She looked at him, out of the corner of her eye, and she saw him watching her. There was a flicker of something between them, and then suddenly they were facing each other.

They were moving closer to each other. Lizzie was trying to resist entering panic mode, and although everything was telling her to _stop this, it's really not going to end well at all because you'll mess it up_ , there was something else overpowering it all, cheering her on. For the briefest of seconds, she felt sick, and that _really_ wouldn't end well. But this was a moment, a moment she hadn't even imagined would ever happen in her life.

She was in love.

They were edging closer now and it wasn't awkward, in fact it was almost _perfect_ , like the scene of a movie, so good, in fact, it could've been staged and filmed for some romance.

Suddenly, Lizzie pulled back. "Wait – I've got no idea what I'm doing."

And the magic was gone. Leo laughed before she could feel guilty (and Lizzie was fine with this – their unspoken 'no laughter' rule was breakable in situations that both of them were finding ridiculous), and then they both looked at each other, in the eye.

"Neither," Leo laughed.

This time, although they were both, now openly terrified, they kissed.

Their awkwardness subsided, perhaps because it was now a mutual awkwardness. Instead, it was replaced by moments of ecstasy, and of the most glorious living, and of love. It didn't even last that long, but n of them cared, because even those seconds were beautiful.

It would, of course, be far from the last time they would do that. And more, of course.

They were not a conventional couple, because neither of them were particularly conventional people. Furthermore, both of them were very inexperienced when it came to relationships. However, they muddled through, in their own way. Neither of them did public restaurants, and a third date experience involved Leo falling over a chair, causing a catastrophic domino effect, involving a collapsing table, spaghetti bolognaise and a ruined marriage proposal.

After that, the two of them just had takeaways in front of a film or the TV, and for them, it was heaven. Some may have accused them of being boring, or of digging a grave for their relationship before it had already begun. However, it worked – after all, Lizzie still maintained that fiction was the greatest way to one's true emotions – what better way to get to know someone by hanging those emotions on display? Also, they both found it hilarious.

Approximately eight-and-a-half months passed, and Lizzie and Leo made the executive decision to move in with each other. They later found out that this was much easier on paper than it would be in practise, as the logistics of deciding whose property to move into. However, the decision was made to move into Lizzie's flat, as Leo was self-employed, and Lizzie one day _hoped_ to be self-employed.

"I can't believe you're leaving," Kym was sat on Lizzie's sofa, making silly faces at Ulysses.

Ulysses glared at her in return. " _give me strength_."

"Oh yeah, about that," Lizzie sat on the sofa and they turned to face each other, crossed-legged. "I'm staying here, and Leo is moving in."

There was a slight pause while Kym's jaw hit the floor. "Oh. My. Kendrick. Lamar," she spluttered, and she started hyperventilating, gasping for breaths as if she were drowning. Lizzie started to panic, as she thought Kym was having some kind of asthma attack.

"Calm down, it's not that amazing! Kym, seriously, please what's happening –"

Kym squealed in delight. She was fine.

That night, Leo turned up in a death-trap of a van, and Lizzie and Kym helped to pack all the boxes in the lift (which, for Kym, was standing around ogling Leo and talking about the English translation of that _Despacito_ song). They travelled up to Lizzie's floor, and just chucked all the boxes in Lizzie's hallway.

Before Kym left, she engulfed Lizzie in an almighty hug. "Thanks girl for being my bezzie."

"You're still my… _bezzie_ ," Lizzie said, feeling like a spoon calling Kym a 'bezzie'.

"Yeah, but like, end of an era and all that. You're no longer a single pringle ready to mingle. And that's hella cool."

 _Yep_ , Lizzie thought. It was hella cool.

"You look after her, alright?" Kym pointed at Leo. "And more importantly," she turned to Lizzie. "You look after him."  
Lizzie hugged her once more, and they said goodnight.

That night, the two of them sat on the sofa, watching _Ratatouille_ (they shared a love for Pixar). and Leo turned to her. "Thank you for putting up with my awkwardness. And for just, y'know, being there."

"It's cool," Lizzie kissed him.

"No but seriously. I don't think I've ever had anyone who… gets me like you do. And even when you don't, you accept me. And I think that's just as good."

Lizzie was almost happy for not being the one to have to feel awkward saying the sentimental stuff. There wasn't really anything she could add.

"Thank you for exactly the same."

"As they say," Leo joked. " _'There is excellence all around you. You need only be aware to stop and savour it'_."

They laughed.

***

One summer's evening, Lizzie was sat on their balcony. The sun was setting, and the evening was hot and muggy. Her laptop was on the trestle table, and she tapped away at an annoyingly irregular pace. _Writer's block_. Someone she looked up to once said writer's block wasn't not knowing what to write, it was having the ideas but not knowing how to write them. Or something like that. For what it was worth, she agreed.

"You've been doing this like, all afternoon," Leo nagged her, trying to get her to shut up her laptop, because he could see writing was stressing her out.

"Let me just finished this chapter," she muttered, trying to hide her laughter. She wanted nothing more than to shut her laptop because the writing was stressing her out.

"Oh my god you're actually unbearable."

"I have a good work ethic…"

One more sentence. Another more sentence. She could hear him giggling behind her, like an idiotic schoolboy. She glared at him through the reflection of the screen, and their eyes met in the glare. Lizzie tried very hard to ignore him. A third sentence, and then she realised that this wasn't going to work.

"For god's sake," she turned to him, slamming the laptop lid shut. He raised his arms as if she were going to throw something at him, even though they both knew 1. She wouldn't throw anything, and 2. If she did, she would miss.

He laughed, bouncing over like a little Jack Russell, and pulling up a chair. "Thank you."

"You're…"

"You wouldn't actually call me anything nasty."

"– an irritating individual." She was going to be the better person in their banter-argument.

"Am I…"

"You are. Any work done today?" Lizzie asked, as if she were a childminder, when in fact she was just making conversation.

"Yep… articles written… reviews proofread –"

"Yeah, you've not done a thing."

"– you're right, I haven't."

"You're such a bad liar," Lizzie leaned across, laying her head on his shoulder.

Leo looked down at her guiltily. "Sorry if I disturbed you, Liz."

"It's fine."

"But sorry."

"It's cool! Honestly, I needed to stop."

"Okay. Sorry."

"Please stop apologising," Lizzie instructed him. He did so. "Thank you for disturbing me. I needed it."

As Lizzie rested her head on his shoulder, she could hear his heart beating, and the vibration it sent throughout his chest. And it was to that rhythm of life that she fell asleep.

***

 _In the name of the Doctor, their army had charged, and collided with Evangeline's forces._

 _It happened as it does in all wars – the gangs of soldiers mingled, and shot and fired and sliced and diced, and good people fell – but the Doctor's people danced a deadly dance through their enemies, and Evangeline's forces were being pushed back, their horses falling, their dogs failing, and their people dying. But in return, her hounds gnawed off faces, and bears cut through throats as if they were butter._

 _The quagmires they fought over became filled with blood, and limbs, and heads, and swords and spears swung and clashed, while bolts and arrows cut people down, and showers of bullets struck, all on both sides. Above them, spaceships and helicopters dashed low over the battlefield, sending storms of firepower onto the combatants below, slicing down hundreds in one, dreadful swoop. Meanwhile, Dr Siddiqui stood amongst the carnage with his iPad, and with the simple press of a button, he detonated mines that sent bodies scattered into the air like confetti._

 _As Lizzie walked over the battlefield, the battle raged on around her, and she could hear nothing, for the cries and screams of the dying, and the roars of the winners, and the howls of animals, and the bursts of guns and cannons, and the scrapes of blades. She had to step over corpses that had burned from incendiary bombs and flamethrowers, and she had to walk around bodies with chewed off limbs and ears and eyes gouged out, and finally she looked down at the animals – innocent creatures who had been condemned to die in such a dreadful fight. Soon, the bony-white sky above them became a strange mix of red and brown, reflecting the colour of the oceans of bloody dirt and mud that stretched on forever._

 _It was a disgusting sight._

 _Lizzie cried for those who did not make it. So many people willing to go so far, for one man. The slaughter was sickening, and Lizzie was faced with images that she thought for as long as she lived, she would never be able to forget in her entire life. When all this began, she had been delighted, to see so many join them. And now... Lizzie hated the fact they'd come. To think that when she had seen the Doctor's army, she had been pleased - when, in fact, this was all that had come of it. Because an idiotic old woman sat in her tower and decided that she was superior, meant that this hell had happened._

 _And that made her scared. Terrified, in fact. That when people came out to fight for their beacon of hope in the universe, so much hurt had been caused. That when they tried to help, sometimes it just wasn't enough._

 _She was now at the far end of the battlefield, and the oak doors leading into the tower were in front of her. After taking one, last, grim look at the battle, she entered the building._

***

Mary greeted Lizzie for the first time in a few months. She hugged her, and led her inside, and made her tea. It was all remarkably routine, although their appointments had slowly grown further and further apart, as Lizzie had realised she didn't need them so frequently.

Mary finally sat down, and placed two hands on her lap, in that mediatory way she often did. A mediator, of course, between Lizzie and her thoughts. "How are things?"

Lizzie nodded, because she didn't want to seem too overenthusiastic. "Yeah…." There was no point in lying. "Really, really good."

At that moment, Mary bit her lip, as if it her to see Lizzie doing so well. Why would it _pain_ her? Lizzie nearly said something, but Mary interrupted her.

"Wow! Wow, that's – that's – well, brilliant, Lizzie, yes. Brilliant."

 _You're not pleased_ , Lizzie thought. Why couldn't she be pleased for her?

"I _am_ pleased for you, Lizzie," Mary reassured her, as if she were reading her thoughts.

Lizzie tried to look as if she wasn't being too aggressive, but she just _couldn't_ see Mary's apathy to the situation. And… it was annoying. Lizzie had worked so hard to feel like she did, and she hated the fact that Mary, the person who had helped her most of all, couldn't see it. "It's just… you don't look it."

"Lizzie, look – there's something I need to tell you."

Those words never led to anything good, Lizzie was almost certain of that.

"I should've told you sooner, before –"

"What is it?" Lizzie cut her off, desperate to know, as if she knew, instinctively, it was going to be bad.

"– before you got to settled, it's just – it was a risk, that's all –"

"What is it?!"

Mary reached over and took both of Lizzie's hands in hers, a reassuring gesture, a dreadful, doom-laden foreshadowing.

"Lizzie. I'm sorry to tell you this, but – this world is a lie."

Why, of course Lizzie did not need to be told this. She looked up, and she was climbing the spiral staircase – it was cramped inside the tower on the planet of Lonely, and through the thick stone walls, she could still hear the screams of the dying, bleeding in through the walls. Above her head, in the room far at the top of this tower, the Doctor was waiting for her – he needed to be saved.

At that exact moment, that was what Lizzie had to focus on, because that was what was going on.

Lizzie, Cioné and Iris were saving the Doctor. They had amassed an army, with Cleopatra, with Elle and Jarvis, with the Hunters of Artemis, with Ronnie – with so many more. A few seconds of slight bemusement passed, as Lizzie suddenly became aware of her breathing, and her moving – but it was fine. She was just doing one of those things, where she slipped slightly from reality, and became disengaged with her own little world.

Yes… the 'five-years-after-the-Doctor' world. It really did seem to become reality in exactly the moments she didn't need it to. Lizzie gritted her teeth, and continued up the steep heights of the tower, knowing that she would have to side-line that world for now. But as their mission to save the Doctor had progressed, that world had got stronger, and she had escaped to it even more frequently than usual. Which was understandable – for it was the world Lizzie ran to when she was scared, or when she was sad. When her anxieties flared, or her depression dragged her down, or when she needed to hide from the truth, Lizzie would retreat into her own head.

Her own head, where everything was perfect. A best friend who was hilarious and outgoing, and showed that even the smallest things in life could be brilliant. Talking cats! What was madder and more her than that? Being brave enough to go to all of the counselling under the sun – definitely wouldn't happen in real life. And above all, someone she could love. Lizzie was too scared to love anyone – but in her dreams, Lizzie wasn't scared at all, and the perfect companion was there for her. Leo.

A perfect world, a world where her depression couldn't get to her. Lizzie looked at that world, and knew that it couldn't be true – after all, the world was not tailored to her, whereas this world was. Although, whenever Lizzie left that world, although it gave her those minutes of respite, there was always the crushing disappointment that hiding there forever would never achieve anything, and she just felt guilty and useless. The closest thing she had to a real life and to a sane personality, was in a dream. What kind of life was that?

But it helped her cope. It was _her_ world. There were people there who would always help her, and when Lizzie was there, she never felt alone. And in her darkest days, she could go to that heaven. Whenever the universe wasn't so beautiful, Lizzie had a place that was. She held onto that place. Lizzie felt safe there.

And Lizzie didn't feel safe anywhere else.

She was at the top of the tower – and so she opened the door, gently creeping inside.

It was a spacious chamber, and it was decorated nicely – there was an oak dining table beside the arch window, which looked down over the battlefield below. Upon the table was a vase, with blue flowers of a type Lizzie recognised, but couldn't name, and beside it a laptop. The chamber was dimly lit, by gas lamps, and by the light of the moon, which shone brightly through the arch window on the far side. One of the moon beams reached the foot of a throne directly opposite the window – it was an ornate, wooden seat, upon which, as Lizzie had expected, sat the Doctor.

He glanced over to see her. "Lizzie…"

Lizzie quickly made her way over to him, and stopped as she observed what a state he was in. His hair was messy, and his beard had regrown – and various cannulas stuck into his hands. His clothes were shabby, torn and bloodstained, and yet, despite all this, he still managed to regain an air of elegance about him.

"The… the flowers," he spoke, having to stop for breath in the middle of his sentence. His eyes were sunken and surrounded by black rings, and every word was an effort.

"Don't try and speak," she reassured him. It was painful to see him in such a… sad, lonely and ruined state. The figure in front of her was a shadow of the man who had stood up to men in glass towers, who had taken down terrorists. Who had saved Egyptian Queens, and who had fought ghosts. Yet he still retained all his bravery. All his strength. And all his emotion.

He ignored her and continued. "Irises."

For the Doctor, it had been hope. Not only did they remind him of his beautiful daughter, but they reminded him of hoping, in general. And hope was what he needed – all of the bad dreams in the universe streaming through his head, with nothing to keep him entertained apart from a laptop (which they'd cut the internet to) – hope was pretty important. Lizzie felt a pang of sadness at the sheerness and rawness of the Doctor's helplessness, and at how little he had to keep himself going. But she tried to ignore it, as she looked through all of the tubing that connected him to… whatever he was connected to.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

The Doctor gave her a smile, as if to say that he wasn't, but he was happy to see her. "I knew you'd come," he whispered. "I always had hope… I always knew I could rely on Lizzie Darwin to save me."

Lizzie looked at the tangle of equipment surrounding the chair, because the saving wasn't going so well. "How do I get you out of this?"

The Doctor spoke bluntly. "You don't."

Lizzie looked at him, and then at the chair in utter confusion. "What?"

The Doctor wasn't quite sure how to get around the next bit of their conversation, because it was going to be a bit of a bombshell.

"Okay… the universe is ending."

Lizzie backed away from the equipment. "… right."

"I'm powering the Memory Graveyard, which is currently breaking down the dimensions and is going to result in the eventual destruction of everything that ever happened or ever will."

All the bad memories and the bad dreams coming out to destroy the universe. Would anything else have ended it? So many lives, so many beyond the point of counting – and the amount of pain that could have been mustered up over time… it was a chilling thought. However, it still did not explain why they couldn't take him out.

"Why can't we take you out?"

"Because that will trigger a feedback loop which will destroy the universe instantly."

Faced with a choice between destroying the universe slowly, or destroying it instantly, Lizzie reluctantly grabbed a chair from the table and sat down on it. She had no choice, and desperation filled her. She had to do something, she had to help – she couldn't just… let the universe be destroyed like this.

"There has to be another way…," Lizzie shifted the chair closer to him.

"There isn't."

Lizzie knew there had to be. There always was, surely so close to the end, the universe wouldn't let her down. To reassure him of this, she slipped off her chair, and knelt down beside the Doctor, placing her hands over his.

"I can get up and walk," the Doctor explained. "I can… I can live, essentially, but only just, the Memory Graveyard keeps me on the brink. And all the time, it's like… like I can feel it there, in my head. So, we leave me plugged in, and we try and figure out a way to stop the end of the universe. And here's what I don't get, Evangeline Cullengate – why?"

Lizzie suddenly realised that the old woman was sat in a chair, in the corner of the room. She wondered how long Evangeline had been there, but it couldn't have been long – she'd taken Lizzie's chair.

"Oh - believe me, this isn't intentional. But if this universe must go down, then... so be it. I created the Memory Graveyard as a safeguard to protect my Empire from the Time War. But it seems this universe is sinking either way - and so, I must let it," Evangeline chuckled.

But neither the Doctor, nor Lizzie, understood. Why would Evangeline Cullengate go so far to protect her Empire from the Time War, choosing to destroy the universe instead of losing her sole safeguard against the conflict? Unless, of course, the conflict was that bloody. That brutal, that one would rather die than face it. But even so - there was something about Evangeline Cullengate that was strange... as if her rule of the Empire, in fact, meant nothing to her, and she was instead playing games...

Evangeline Cullengate was important, and not just as Prime Minister of the Empire. This wasn't a debate over power... this was something personal. Cullengate had a higher involvement in the universe... after all, how else would she design something as complex as the Memory Graveyard? How would she let the universe die in the blink of an eye?

The woman who would destroy the universe for her power and giggle about it, stood, and strode over to the window, where she gazed upon the fields below. Night had fully fallen now, and yet the battle continued. Quagmires of mud and blood stretched on for as far as she could see. Bodies splayed about, their faces ripped off by her hounds, their limbs dotted around. There were the carcasses of the horses of her men, and there were the bodies of her men too. It was not just casualties on her side, however – she could see many of the opposition had been culled. She gave it a wry smile – although the battle seemed to be approaching its aftermath, it did not seem like a victory for either party.

Which was better than a loss for her.

"Do you know what's going to happen to you?"

Evangeline saw the voice facing her in the mirror. It was Lizzie Darwin, standing at her, looking so brave, and so strong. And yet she meant nothing. Although – even if that was what Evangeline's mind was telling her, there was something admittedly quite terrifying about the grim way with which she spoke.

Evangeline did not respond to her question, and so Lizzie continued.

"Me."

The Prime Minister turned around then, and attempted to hide the look on her face.

The look on the face, of a girl who had come so far. Once upon a time, she'd been that awkward girl from that little town, too scared to do anything with her life, trapped in her life by her mind and by the government. But all that time, she had never been afraid to stand up for what was right. And now, she did so – but without fear.

Lizzie walked closer to the woman. "I've spent all my life oppressed by people like you. People like you, who destroy the universe, often in the most subliminal ways – and until now, I've lived in fear of that. But… I'm not scared anymore. And it stops. I'm going to save the Doctor, and even if it kills me, I'm still going to find the time to come and overthrow you. I'd start packing up your office, Evangeline, because the end is near, the revolution is coming, and it's going to get you."

A brief silence followed, the three of them (Lizzie included), stunned by the extent of her speech.

Evangeline seemed almost scared – no, it wasn't fear. Her eyes displayed genuine anger, in contrast to her face, which hardened to its usual, cold self.

"Well, Elizabeth," Evangeline spat. "Powerful –"

But before she could have a chance to mock her, the ground beneath them rocked. An almighty tremor was throwing the tower around, and the Doctor was flung forward from his chair, the cannulas ripping from his hand and bloodying his shirt sleeves – but he didn't care, as his eyes immediately took sight of the vase of irises, which spun on the oak table before falling, for what felt like an age, to the floor. As it connected with its stony death, the glass cracked, and then cracked again, and then cracked and cracked and cracked – a process that the Doctor realised was just the vase shattering into a million tiny pieces, but his mind was slow, and everything took longer to happen. The irises floated to the ground, becoming buried in that grave of crystals.

Evangeline had been knocked to the ground, but she regained herself quickly, dusting herself off, and dashing to the window. It might have been possible – although it was not uttered loud enough for them to hear it – that Evangeline cursed under her breath at that moment.

She turned back to Lizzie. "I'm sorry, Elizabeth. It seems you'll be starting the revolution from the dead."

Lizzie ran over to the window, and as she did so, she was certain of a peculiar sensation beneath her feet. It was like being in a lift, slowly travelling down to the ground floor.

When she reached the window, she realised she wasn't going mad.

The entire base of the tower was on fire – and the ground the tower was stood upon was slowly coming apart, like a fissure was opening up in the Earth. There was no sudden jolt, no sudden movement of crashing downwards; the dirt and the gravel beneath them was slowly sinking away, and the tower was going with it.

Everything passed in a blur, as Evangeline swished away from them and glanced at what was presumably a teleport bracelet. "Well – it's been a pleasure –"

"No," Lizzie ran over to her, but Evangeline stepped away with ease. "You won't let him die, you can't, it will release him from the Graveyard and the feedback loop with end the universe."

But Evangeline leaned in, and whispered something terrifying.

"I don't care."

Lizzie stepped away from her, with a grimace etched across her face. What her and the Doctor were going through, and the torment she was forcing the universe to endure – and with the flick of a switch, she could stop it all.

"Remember what I said," Lizzie told her.

Evangeline didn't say anything before she was teleported away.

Lizzie looked at the Doctor, and then out of the window. She could hear it, the battle below – the screams of the dying and the injured, and the crackling of the almighty fires licking up at the tower's brickwork. And Lizzie was divided. For once, she couldn't go to the aid of both, there was no nice way out of this. The slaughter outside would continue and the universe was going to end, and Lizzie had no option.

The ground was falling, slowly beneath her.

And they were sinking into the flames.

***

 _Her supernatural-counselling group thing had its final meeting of the session tonight, and she wanted to go._

 _They were all there – Jasper, Jac, Chloe, Roger, George, Ken and Tammy, and herself._

 _"Today we're going to talk about moving on," Jasper said, as he opened the group._

 _Oh, for god's sake. Of all the things Lizzie wanted to talk about, this wasn't one of them._  
 _"How have you all moved on from your experiences?" Jasper provided a few pointers. "What… coping techniques, perhaps. How long did it take?"_

 _There was a brief spell of silence. The questions Jasper always asked them were big, and people weren't ever in a hurry to be the first one to open up their inner-most emotions._

 _"Five minutes a day," Jac said. "I miss her for five minutes a day. I look at photos of her, but that's it. As far as I can go."_

 _They all nodded. Of course, they all knew 'her' was Jac's daughter. By now, they'd become well-accustomed to each other's problems._

 _The other participants in the group spoke in turn, about their experiences. Some of them were less cold and logical than Jac. Ken said he hadn't ever come to terms with the spirits that haunted him. Roger said it was just a matter of time._

 _"Lizzie," Jasper turned to her, sensing that she was being even quieter than her usual quiet self. "What about you?"_  
 _"I think," Lizzie said. "People get moving on wrong. They think it's forgetting about it, and just putting it in the past. Which it isn't. With a lot of things, you can't do that. Moving on is just learning to live with it. But… I don't know how that's possible."_

 _They all nodded in approval at that. "Thank you, Lizzie," Jasper gave her a reassuring smile. "That was lovely."_

 _The meeting lasted another half an hour, before they wrapped things up. The gang said their farewells – maybe some of them would come back, maybe they wouldn't. Now that their 'course' was over, it wasn't so important. But all of them enjoyed it. It had helped all of them come to terms with it._

 _On her way out, beneath the orange glow of a street lamp, Lizzie's phone rang. She ducked into a bus shelter and answered it._

 _It was Kym. And she was crying._

 _"Lizzie, it's – it's Leo."_

***

The tower was still sinking beneath them, and yet, the Doctor and Lizzie were calm. They could feel the floor heating up beneath them, as the fire slowly rose, and both of them had that ever-present feeling that it would soon engulf them. Lizzie sat beside the Doctor, as she fiddled with the wiring in the throne, and wrapped a teleport bracelet around his wrist.

"This is going to get you off the planet"

As soon as Lizzie said that, the Doctor made a move to try and take it off, citing, through his panting breaths, that he wouldn't – that he couldn't leave her there. But she ignored him, and put the bracelet back on him, and he was too tired to struggle this time. Finally, Lizzie turned away, so she could wipe the tears from her eyes without him noticing.

"Why are you so upset?"

Lizzie glanced out of the windows, just briefly. Now that night had settled, the flames and the explosions seemed even more vivid – and everything surrounding the tower seemed to be in a crimson glow… perhaps from the flames, or perhaps from the blood.

"Because look at what's happened."

She hated it – she hated looking out at the battle below. Saving the Doctor seemed to mean nothing now, in contrast to the hell she'd created out there.

The Doctor tried to say something reassuring. "Lizzie… fascism created this. Evangeline created this. And you stood up to it. You saved me, and you did it because you had to stand up to Evangeline and her people."

Lizzie snapped at him, then. "And there's the difference between you and me, because you can look at this carnage and bat an eyelid, and I can't. This wasn't ever meant to happen. Those people came out, in support of you. And that scared me - because look at how far people went today. Look at the... carnage that happened."

"I know, Elizabeth, and -"

"What sort of universe is that? Where kids are gonna wake up without their parents, because some idiot decided that they wanted to hate other people? Even the most... random guy fighting for the ShadowStar, he's probably got children, and they'll have lost their dad, because Evangeline Cullengate decided she was better than everyone else. And yet, what choice have we got? When people like her are threatening to cleanse populations, and ruin lives on an enormous scale? And I can't do it. Because no matter how much I want to help, I won't ever be able to. The universe will always be dark, and bitter, and hateful, and that will just cause more hate."

There was an awkward silence between them, then – if one were to see them as they were then, one could mistake the scene from their earliest meetings, before they'd changed at all.

The Doctor couldn't think of anything to say, apart from the truth.

"But that's what makes you brilliant. Because you value life."

Lizzie shook her head. She didn't even know what life meant. The only way she'd been able to cope with it, was by creating fantasies in her head, and even then, coping was a loose term for Lizzie Darwin. Perhaps she did scrape through every single day, but did she cope? Personally, Lizzie doubted it.

The Doctor continued. "The girl who values life, but not her own. The girl who helps, but can't ask for help."

This was not a conversation Lizzie wanted to have at that moment. So, she changed the subject – the fire was close to them now. "I'll stay – I'll find another way out."

"You couldn't have done anything more," the Doctor ignored her. "What happened today was awful – but it proved that you are incredible. Because you try – you always try. Today, you saw how dark the universe can get, you saw the disgusting effect people like Evangeline Cullengate have on the universe – but you're still here, trying to save me. The universe is impossible, and hard, and horrific – and all we can do is try and see the good in it as well. But there will come days, like today, when that is so, so hard."

Then, the Doctor stood up with surprising ease, and walked to the centre of the chamber. "When we're done here, Elizabeth – when we've saved the universe from the Memory Graveyard – it's going to be my turn to help you. Just as you've always helped me."

The Doctor's teleport bracelet lit up green, and he vanished in a flash of blue light.

It was just her in the tower, and when she glanced out of the window, she could see the battle dwindling below her – except, gradually it was growing closer, as the tower sank further and further into the mud. In its place was a field blanketed in corpses, and as she gagged, she forced herself to turn away, and listen to the crackling of the blaze beneath her.

Lizzie knew how she was going to get out of this one.

She did not know whether she was going to get out of it alive.

***

 _Lizzie had practically thrown herself on the next bus, and when it arrived outside the hospital, she ran inside as fast as she could. Faster than she'd ever done before. Kym was stood outside the room, her make-up streaked, and more upset than Lizzie had ever seen her._

 _"Erm," she murmured, trying to explain it. "I don't – I don't know, I found him cus I popped over to see you, and he was just – just lying there –"_

 _Kym was actually just making Lizzie more panicky. "Okay Kym please shut up, you're just stressing me out."_

 _"Sorry."_

 _"It's fine."_

 _A young woman in blue scrubs walked over to them. "Elizabeth Darwin?"_

 _"Yeah?"_

 _"I'm Dr Gao. I've been treating Leo. I need you to come and speak to my consultant?"_

 _"Oh, erm, sure, can I see him?"_

 _"Of course, but you really need to speak to the consultant first."_

 _Lizzie reluctantly followed the woman, to a little man at the end of the corridor, hunched over but dressed in a neat, grey suit. "You're the… next of kin?" he said, remarkably tactlessly._

 _"Erm, yeah."_

 _"I'm George Siddiq, consultant cardiologist and clinical lead of our cardiothoracic ward here."_

 _His next words shattered her entire life. In fact, they were the worst words she'd heard in her life._

***

Lizzie threw herself forward.

The glass of the window smashed and lashed at her skin, and she fell from the tower – but it was only a few feet before she hit the ground, and her fall was broken by the soft dirt and gravel mattress she crashed into.

Except she was still moving downwards.

As Lizzie looked around her, she realised that the tower was not just sinking into the ground – instead, the entire area of ground around the base, for about a hundred by a hundred metres, had become a whirlpool of soil and gravel and rocks and stones, spiralling downwards to the place where the tower was becoming submerged in its earthy grave. And Lizzie had fallen straight into this funnel. She realised as she tried to crawl out of it, that the mud and the arid dirt she was gripping onto was coming away beneath her hands, the thinness of chalk, and falling into the almighty depth below her.

As Lizzie looked up, she could see the blackness of the sky, the same colour as the dust she was attempting to climb out of – but she could not see the moon as it was hidden behind the far rims of the pit, and the only light was the terrifying red glow coming from the bit. The dirt beneath her was dry, and the smoke left an acrid taste in the back of her throat, and her eyes stung and watered as the dust snuck past her eyelashes and nestled deep in her eyes. Her breaths were becoming further and further apart, and shallower and shallower, as oxygen became diluted from the billowing smoke rising from below. The dark gas filled her lungs, and she thought of the blood through her, thinning and slowing, and gradually she felt her limbs dozing off, as if there was nothing to worry about at all. Her eyes were closing – not just because of the ash snowing from above, but because she had no energy to keep them open.

Briefly Lizzie was woken, as she realised that the ground's swallowing speed was increasing, and her foot had been sucked into the deadness of the earth. The quicksand-like qualities of the ground made panic burn through her, as the explosion had burned through the tower, and her survival instincts leapt into life, causing her to try and thrash her way out of the ground eating away at her – but as she dug the dirt just frittered away, spilling back into her face. As a globule of soil filled her mouth she spat it out, but more of the dry, crumbly mud entered her eyes.

The ground kept folding away from her, and Lizzie tried as hard as she could to find something to place her other foot on, so she could lever herself further up the continual landslide, but before she could do so the dirt gobbled up her other foot.

Now Lizzie was fully in the jaws of the landslide, and she could feel herself, slowly falling backwards, as the grubby grave whisked her slowly, but surely, into the mouth of oblivion, the almighty tower having fully disappeared behind her. In its place, there was a great, raging pit of hell – an almighty hole of fire, burning and licking up at the ground, busily digesting brickwork and beams and slate, and rocks and boulders and stones, and as Lizzie glanced back at it, she could see one of the irises from the Doctor's chamber, the petals slowly catching, before they dropped off into nothing. The whirlpool was still carrying her down, and before long, Lizzie would face the same fate as the flowers.

She tried to grip on to something above her – she wasn't sure what, but anything to help her out – but the sandy soil gorged her arms, rendering all of her limbs immobilised. A strange, muggy heat was swallowing her, and she felt sweat bead on her top lip, and her heart was screaming in her ribcage. In those brief seconds, Lizzie wasn't even sure where she was, as it felt as if a camera was zooming out and taking the whole landscape into focus, showing her as just a tiny speck in the ocean of a dead universe.

Lizzie's legs were so close to the flames now, and suddenly, Lizzie thought of how silly she was, to ever think there was a way out of this, as a wave of dirt cascaded upon her from above, filling her oesophagus, larynx and trachea chockfull of death. The stable ground above her seemed a mile away, a distant hope – but when the dirt filled her eyes, it became obscured forever. Lizzie tried to say something, like 'OH MY GOD LET ME OUT I'M DYING PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE', but no noise came, as the ground began to silence her. Her arms waved rapidly as if she were enjoying a concert, as she felt the fires stroke her Conversed feet – except the concert was her absent screams, and the audience were the disciples of the chalky deadness dragging her down into the depths of despair as if it were a giant sand-timer, representing her life, and she was getting ready to enter the bottom, fiery section.

What else would have finished her off? To die, alone, on a place far away from anything she'd ever thought of as home. With nothing but pain and despair surrounding her, with one, final cynical breath of smoke and dirt and blood, Lizzie gave into the flames, disappearing into the flaming pit of hell.

Lizzie burned to death.

***

 _Lizzie sat down, awkwardly, with her arms folded. She expected this to be the moment where she should start gushing beside his hospital bed, with some longwinded and beautiful and eloquently worded speech. Except, there was nothing like that – just a strange, awkward silence._

 _She slipped her bag down, and looked at him. He was so vulnerable. He had been hers, not so long ago, but it was as if now, the world had taken him and crushed him and beaten him up, just to prove to her that actually, nothing could ever truly belong to her. Lizzie did not believe that, but it was hard not to. His eyes were closed, and an oxygen mask was fixed over his face. There were tubes and wires and the ever-present beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, quietly emulating from the lifeless machine._

 _Lizzie felt a bit stupid, just sat there, doing nothing, and so she took his hand, again, slightly awkwardly. It had been bandaged up, and it had been a rushed job, the Doctors concerned to continue with more pressing parts of their work. His hand seemed vulnerable, and thin, and skeletal, and it was stupid because it was exactly the same hand she'd seen not that long ago. Nothing much could have happened to it in that time – but it had. She held the hand, hoping, and willing, for the fingers to press back, and to grip hers. They didn't, and she closed her eyes, directing all sensation to her finger tips, as if it would help her find the slightest sensation._

 _"You know," a smooth, silky voice came from the corner of the room. "You should talk to him."_

 _Lizzie almost laughed given the absurdity of the situation._

 _"How did you get in here?" Lizzie turned to Ulysses. He was perched on top of a cabinet in the side of the room, in perfect stillness – the sort of stillness that can only be captured by a feline._

 _"I snuck past the nurses. They did not notice my presence."_

 _"Good, well," Lizzie got ready to say something else, but didn't. "I'm aware of your presence, so please go away."_

 _Unintentionally harsh, but she didn't care._

 _Ulysses didn't say anything, but he just looked down at her, his amber eyes staring deep into her soul, trying to make it realise something._

 _"It isn't just something they do in the movies, you know. Talk to him."_

 _"You're just… part of my conscience."_

 _"Ever the cynic, Elizabeth Darwin. Oh wait – that's not you."_

 _Ulysses was being annoyingly right. He leapt down from his spot on top of the cabinet, and prowled over, nuzzling up against her leg. "Go on."_

 _"I don't know what to…"_

 _"He's the love of your life and he's dying."_

 _The words hit her, harder than she'd expected them to. He was only in her head. But to her, he was so real – he was her coping mechanism, he was her companion, even if he didn't really exist._

 _She hadn't believed it when the consultant told her. Cardiac arrest. Lizzie had told him, she'd said it, over and over, Leo was healthy, Leo was fine, young, he loved a life. All the consultant had said was that cardiac arrests can occur without warning. An electrical malfunction, or something, that stopped his heart pumping._

 _Leo Akram did not have long to live, and the lifetime of words she had to say to him would have to be condensed into… what? Half an hour? An hour at the most?_

 _Of everything the Doctor had shown her, nothing would be as hard or as impossible as that._

 _Lizzie sighed out loud, and just decided to say something, no matter how rubbish or terrible it sounded._

 _"I'm sorry, I'm so so so sorry," it just spilled out, all those apologies that had been building up. That was all she could think of to say. Lizzie couldn't even believe the situation. She was in a not-real-world, and the love of her life was going to die. It was too impossible to believe._

 _So instead of saying anything, she reached into her coat pocket, and pulled out a crumpled post-it note. It was the one from their first date, when they'd played Pictionary. He had never guessed what it was, and eventually, it had just slipped away. And they'd both forgotten about it._

 _Lizzie unfolded the note, to reveal a crude drawing of a human heart._

 _She ran a hand down her face, as it dawned on her how disgustingly fitting it was. But that heart, in her hand, was Leo's heart. Lizzie took his hand, and unfolded it, and put the crumbled up post-it note inside, as if she were gifting it him back to save his life, after he had given it to her._

 _As his fingers touched it, it was as if the heart on the paper began to beat._

 _Leo's eyes opened._

 _"Hello," he murmured. And he let out a small smile._

 _"I'm really sorry."_

 _"Liz – it's not your fault. Oh my god, though, this is mad, you're apologising for killing me in your head. Only you…"_

 _That was what happened when two existential depressed lunatics were a couple, Lizzie thought._

 _"Please, Liz," Leo continued, and she squeezed his hand. "I know you feel responsible for this, but don't. This – this wasn't you, you didn't do this."_

 _Lizzie wiped her eyes, and then she wiped Leo's._

 _"Just…," Leo paused again, snivelling. "Don't blame yourself. Promise me. Promise me you won't."_

 _Lizzie didn't even care what he was saying, for she would have promised him anything at this point. She'd have promised him anything if it meant that he'd come back to her. What a ridiculous notion. She was mourning someone in her head._

 _Except, he wasn't just someone. Her coping mechanism had been cruelly snatched away from her._

 _She knew it wouldn't make him come back to her. But if it meant he was happy with her, then she would promise it without hesitation._

 _"I – I promise."_

 _And Leo smiled, and his broken smile made her smile, because even after it had been destroyed, it still held that charm and that intrigue, and she found him just as beautiful as she did when they first met. Leo was an eye smiler – when he truly smiled, deep down in his soul, his eyes lit up as well. She remembered, all those months ago, when they'd met at Kym's birthday party, and she'd caught his eye. She'd seen the light and the life dancing inside it and singing, as if nobody was around._

 _She looked into his eyes, and she held the dance of them, as if, perhaps, she could learn the steps, and interpret the dance herself._

 _It was no use – it would be truly unique to him._

 _"You make me so happy," Lizzie suddenly said, and she said it without thinking, still so mesmerised by him. "In a world that was just meant to kill me, we – we, we defied it, and we've been happy."_

 _Leo tried to nod, but he couldn't move his head – there was only the faint movement left. Nothing hurt more than his absence of movement – once upon a time he had been so vivid in how he walked, throwing himself from place to place._

 _"We – we've been happy," Leo said, but it was a whisper now. It was as if gradually he were being taken apart – first his movements, and now his words. "We showed them, hey?"_

 _"Yeah," she started stroking his hands now, trying to feel the blood pumping through him – trying to salvage for the last scrap of life. "We showed them."_

 _He took a deep breath, and then he fell back – not that there was anything to fall back onto – it was as if he fell back into himself, and was beginning to dwindle away. She gripped his hand tighter, trying to hold him, as if somehow, she could prevent him from falling away from her._

 _"Have adventures, Liz."_

 _He managed a smile then, and she knew that she would. One day._

 _"Promise me, yeah? Just live. Live as much as you can."_

 _Lizzie nodded, and she tried to speak, but she couldn't._

 _"And, hey," Leo murmured. "Maybe you'll find me."_

 _Lizzie took his hand and she kissed it. His skin was so dry and so dead. There were a few moments of peace, as her lips touched him. Ulysses was curled up on the covers, but he was not asleep, and he was not content. He was watching – keeping guard, making sure nobody hurt his master._

 _She blinked, and then realised that Leo was gone._

 _The electronic heartbeat had stopped, to be replaced with one, long, cold, harsh, monotonous, beep._

 _Lizzie took her lips away from his hand, and she gently laid it against the bed, refusing to let it slip lifelessly down, trying to prevent any hallmark of his gone-ness as she possibly could._

 _A nurse was stood over the bed, and Ulysses gently skulked off the bed. He nuzzled up against her leg, purring quietly._

 _Purring sadly._

 _The nurse checked her watch, and a doctor arrived as well. Leo's eyes were closed, and they said they would give Lizzie a few minutes. It was all so simple, and so routine. She was sure that the staff here had done it a million times before, but for her it meant so much more than a million times would to them._

 _Lizzie did not want a few minutes, though – she wanted the whole lifetime. She wanted all the memories and the years and the times that just evaporated in seconds. They were hers, they belong to her. The future belongs to nobody, she told herself, as if it were some kind of reassurance. It meant nothing._

 _Then she remembered what Leo said, and remembered the chance she'd been given._

 _Lizzie picked up her bag, and closely followed by her faithful black cat, she left the room._

 _The door swung shut behind her, as she left for more adventures._

***

 _I created a heaven to escape from you._

 _A place in my mind, a place I could run to whenever it got too tough. Where everything I had ever suffered from wasn't there – just the good things. You weren't there, Depression. In that place in my mind, I could be free from you. Instead, I was happy. I saw joy at every corner, and you did not corrupt my world as you do in real life. I dreamt of that place, so much – whenever I was lying in bed, trying to get some sleep that would probably never come, I would use that heaven to soothe me. I was free from Loneliness as well. I had so many friends around me, so many beautiful people, and we had so many good days together. And because of this, neglect was gone too._

 _Above all, one of those people was so much more beautiful than anyone I have ever met in my life. I dreamt of Leo Akram because he was someone who understood me, and even when he didn't, he accepted. Perhaps it is true that you only find the perfect person in your dreams – because I dreamt up Leo as the perfect companion to me. Someone who had been just as sad, just as lonely, and just as awkward. Our relationship was so perfect – the sort of perfect one can only ever get when it's not real._

 _In that world, I saw Beauty. I saw Life. I saw Love._

 _But then you entered that place, Depression. You toxified it. You made it bleed, and you ruined it forever – the one place I could escape from you, and you made me feel guilty about it. You killed the most beautiful person I had ever met, and I will never be able to live truly in my dreams again because of you. Well done – you've got my whole mind, you've polluted everything._

 _I could die._

 _I have nothing better, why should I keep living if you're going to keep torturing me?_

 _But I promised Leo. My beautiful Leo Akram, I promised I would have more adventures because of him. I can't let him down on that – even if I want to die, even if it pains me so, so much to even move, I am going to do it because I will not let myself be beaten by what you've done to me, Depression._

 _I won't die because of you._

Lizzie reached a hand out of the dirt, and placed it as far as it would reach. Lizzie gripped onto nothing – a burning nothing, as the ash and the cinders and the gravel was roasting – but it didn't matter, because in her head she was gripping onto something so much stronger.

She pulled.

All of her weight, on that one arm, holding onto nothing at all but what she'd promised someone who had never even existed. It was ridiculous, but perhaps rather fitting for her. Although the stones disintegrated beneath her palm, with the sheer force of which she mustered, Lizzie flung herself forwards, and, although it was just by not-even-a-centimetre, Lizzie began to crawl her way up through the whirlpool.

Just that had been agony, as the smoke continued to rage, harsh on her eyes and on her breathing. Lizzie had gasped as she'd risen, just slightly, and she'd taken in as much pungent, choking air as she possibly could. The heat from below was unbearable, matting her entire body with sweat, and it did not help the constant, throbbing migraine that had come into life in the back of her head. Her mouth was so dry, the only liquid being the blood from her gums, as she gritted her teeth to hide from the pain assaulting her from all sides, and her entire body had been sliced at by sharp rocks and stones, and by the thin blades of glass from the broken tower windows.

It wasn't going to be possible. She could see the rim of the pit so far above her, and it seemed like miles away – miles of crumbling gravel and dirt and earth and stone.

But she would not die.

She flung both arms forward this time, and mustering up all the sheer and undiluted emotion she could find, Lizzie Darwin took hold of nothing and grabbed. When she thought of how far she come, Lizzie knew that she could not just give up on this now – the lonely little girl who'd had bad dreams, and then the teenager who had become disillusioned with the universe, and then the young woman who had travelled through it, and seen how beautiful it could be. Lizzie had come far and she would not let that go. If that was how far Lizzie had come already, then she knew that she could go further. Even if her mind was constantly bogged down by the dreadful thoughts that frequently tormented it, Lizzie knew that if she could make her way through this, she could deal with it.

Lizzie pulled herself up further – although everything in her wanted to give up. Her bones were dead, her muscles were shattered, her head was ringing in agony and even her thoughts were telling her that this was even more stupid than her usual life decisions. But at the same time, there was a reserve somewhere deep inside her, forcing her to keep going. The Doctor had taught her that – she'd always been a determined force to be reckoned with, but she'd also been restrained, by people and by herself. But now she knew that when she believed in something, Lizzie Darwin would muster up the bravery to force herself onwards.

Lizzie moved further up the walls of the pit.

The Doctor had taught her a lot of things, and as she did so, at that moment, she saw the beauty on this dead and desolate world. Lizzie had moved enough, to be able to see the moon above the rim, shining brightly and beautifully. And… there were stars as well. Even when everything was dreadful, and she wanted nothing more than to give up, there was something happy too. Lizzie gazed at those stars, and she decided that she was going to see them. She wanted her happiness.

And although self-confidence was really not her jam, Lizzie decided that she deserved that happiness.

Then came a voice – a rather surprising voice.

"Yo, Lizzinator."

Lizzie turned, to see Kym, chilling out on the landslide beside her, completely oblivious to the hell beneath them. At that moment, Lizzie mused over why she'd created Kym in her head – perhaps it was because of her happiness, even in the darkest of situations. Kym's aviator shades were perched on her nose, and her make-up done exquisitely. She wore a tank top and shorts, as if she were dressed for the beach. Even in the depths of hell, Kym Gomez was determined to make an effort. And upon Kym's lap, sat Ulysses.

"Btw," Kym continued. "Calling you Lizzinator because it sounds epic, and you're doing something pretty epic right now."

"Thanks," Lizzie spluttered, only just realising how breathless she was, and how much dirt was in her mouth, as she edged a bit further up the mountain, only to be rewarded by a face-full of gravel.

"Just wanted to say, Lizzinator, you're doing really well. Like, girl, I'm hella proud right now, so keep going babe. You're gonna get there in the end, I know you will."

Lizzie gave her an appreciative smile, ignoring the sharp pain in her jaw as she did so. "Thanks, haha."

Ulysses crept forward towards her. "I do hope that by the end of this, you will join me for a glass of wine and a tete-a-tete. You'd better get through it, Elizabeth. I need you, you're the only person who's sane enough for me to speak to."

Lizzie shook her head, as she tried to move upwards more, but sliced her hand on a blade of broken glass. It meant nothing. They were created to be perfect, created as an escape. Kym and Ulysses meant nothing to her, they couldn't even be real. What was the point in having somewhere if it was just going to be blatantly unrealistic?

"You're… you're not real," Lizzie spoke in between her heavy breaths and dry coughing. "You're in my head."

But then Ulysses spoke. "Oh, my darling Elizabeth. Just because we're in your head, doesn't mean we're not real."  
Lizzie almost stopped crawling then, due to how spellbound she was by what Ulysses had said. But then she reached forward, and crawled forward, and as she glanced around her, Lizzie could see the flames – not far beneath her, but much further beneath her than they'd been before. Perhaps she would meet Ulysses for that tete-a-tete. Having that place to go was important.

When Lizzie blinked again, she saw that the two of them had gone.

"Hey, sis."

Sat in their place, was her sister.

"I – Iris," Lizzie muttered. Lizzie had aimed to sound a little happier than she did, but in her own defence, under those current circumstances it was quite difficult.

"You're my big sister. I need you."

Lizzie was a useless sister. And besides, Iris had a mum, and a dad, who loved her beyond words. Iris had better people than her to love – but as she looked over at that woman, who Lizzie had known since that young woman was a little girl, she hauled herself further up that ground. Lizzie couldn't just let her go, not like that, and so she buried her insecurities.

"Don't tell anyone I said that, I have a reputation to keep up."

And suddenly, Lizzie laughed. That was new – or at least, it felt new, and she wanted to do it again.

"Also, because I'm just in your head," Iris added. "You essentially just laughed at your own joke."

Lizzie grimaced at her own narcissism and took hold of a clump of burning ash, and crawled just a little bit further up; clearly her mind hadn't quite given up on its own happiness just yet.

"It's all stars, stars, stars, Lizzie," Iris mused. She was right. Anyone who'd been looking into Lizzie's life recently would have been incredibly fed up by the constant talk of stars. "But you know what? That's because you're not afraid to hope for them, even when you're hating the universe."

Iris stood up, and pointed to the stars above them. "I'll be here for you, Lizzie. When this is all over."

Lizzie wanted those days. She wanted that time with Iris, to be with someone who saw so much hope and wonder in the universe – and so she gazed at the stars Iris loved so much, and she dreamed of them.

And Lizzie rose further from the pit.

When Lizzie looked over again, Iris was gone – and this time, she was replaced by a woman in a sort of creamy-white colour, which most people would be concerned about getting horribly muddy. A pashmina was draped around her, along with the most hideously orange Nike trainers Lizzie had ever seen.

"Darling, thank the lord you're alright," Cioné breathed a sigh of relief, even though Lizzie wasn't quite sure what she was saying, considering she was in complete agony trying to pull herself out of a burning hole in the ground.

"Nice shoes," Lizzie observed.

Cioné seemed rather pleased with that remark. "Thank you! They're very _me_ , I think."

Delightfully quirky, and without a care what people thought of her, Cioné decided to change the subject to one rather more appropriate. "Sorry, me, worthwhile conversation, bit of an oxymoron, anyway…"

Lizzie had quite liked the worthless conversation. It was a nice push back to reality, one that she thought she needed. All her life she'd been a bit of a dreamer, as had become even more relevant. But even Lizzie wasn't sure she could ever have dreamed up her current situation.

"You, dear Lizzie," Cioné continued. "Brought our glorious family together. You brought all of our uniqueness, and quirkiness, and created something truly beautiful from it. And from that, I won't ever be able to thank you enough. Keep going, lovely girl – and I will see you again."

Lizzie admired those shoes one more time, and she decided she didn't want to be awkward, or hide herself from anyone anymore. To be herself was what mattered, to be confident in who she was – and that would help her to be happier.

Lizzie rose further from the pit.

The end was in sight now, and she put past the burning ash and cinders that roasted in the joints between her knuckles, and pricked her skin, and she forgot about the banging headache. Lizzie embodied her resilience and grit, and she forced herself up that scorching whirlpool that was determined to suck her deeper and deeper inside.

"You're so nearly there."

Maggie was beside her now. By her side, as Maggie Shepherd always was. The closest thing that Lizzie had ever had to a mother – of course she would support her during the journey.

Suddenly, Lizzie's breath exhausted itself, and she slipped slightly down the mountain, the ground deteriorating beneath her. But Lizzie didn't fall, because Maggie's hands were resting on hers – reassuring her, calming her – showing her support, and that she would always be there to help.

Maggie would always be there for her, no matter how hard things got.

"I know you feel alone, Lizzie. I know you've always felt that way, all your life. But you're not – and I won't ever stop telling you this. But if you're going to listen to me, at any point, now's the time. We're never alone in this world, love. Even if everyone vanished on Earth – there'd always be someone with you. Now… stay strong, love."

And when Lizzie looked, Maggie was gone – but she did not feel alone. Because Lizzie knew that Maggie would always be there to welcome her home – and that there would always be people around her, even when it didn't feel like it.

Lizzie made one, final, push, her entire body scraping over a field of spiky rocks, and stones, and soft gravel, and choking dust and ash. When she was over the threshold of the burning pit, she collapsed on the verge of the pathway to hell, her entire body giving up. Perhaps this was what it was like, to be so near the edge of life – with no energy left in the world, Lizzie lay back in the dirt, and she closed her eyes.

But as they began to shut, Lizzie saw one, final figure beside her.

Leo Akram. The perfect companion – the perfect person for her to love.

Her eyes shut.

But Lizzie was content.

Some very brave people had taught her some very brave things.

Lizzie had learned that even when something is in your head, it doesn't make it not real.

Lizzie had learned that even when the night is blackest, the stars are still there – and that you just need to dream of them.

Lizzie had learned that she needed to embrace herself – to be quirky, to be unique.

Lizzie had learned that there were always people around her – and that no matter how alone she felt, she would never, ever be alone.

And finally, Lizzie had learned to love.

Her eyes opened again, as if she were trying to look at something – perhaps she was trying to see how far she'd come, and what a different person she was now. And yet, that person was broken. She'd been broken by everything. Her depression had gutted her, the governments she so hated had been victorious, and now she was alone, on a desolate plain of death and pain. Lizzie Darwin was content, that even though she had been such a failure, she had at least learned the most important things.

All she had to do now, was give up, and let the emptiness wash over her.

But as she looked up at the moon and the stars, she heard a voice.

It was the Doctor.

"We're going to help you, Lizzie Darwin. It won't be easy. There will be dark, dark days – but in the end, you'll be alright."

And Lizzie Darwin learned her final lesson.

To ask for help.


	15. 513 The Bad-Dream Girl

**PROLOGUE**

"Can you confirm?" the strange woman looked up at her over half-moon spectacles. "You are Margaret Shepherd?"

Maggie was sat with her legs crossed and her hands on her lap, looking nervously at the slightly intimidating woman across from her, in the office, on the gigantic space-station. What was perhaps slightly more intimidating, was that above her head, according to the lovely man who had led her in, was a star being born.

However, Maggie decided to take it all in her stride. Granted, it was a lot to take in – another strange woman turning up at your house in a box, a bit like that of Lizzie's friend – and then saying that Lizzie was ill, and needed help. Still, she'd already seen the girl, a daughter-like figure to her, whizz off into time and space with a rather dishy gentleman, so Maggie took it all in her stride.

She'd been sat down with a cup of tea at the time, watching a rerun of _The Chase_ and cheering to herself when she got the questions right, attempting not to spill the tea whenever she did so. Then, there had been a knock at the door, and the woman had been stood there, holding a rather sullen looking gnome in her hand.

"To replace the one my husband destroyed," she said, an apologetic look etched across her face. The woman, who was apparently called Cioné had refused a cup of tea, even though Maggie had made up a pot. Maggie led her through to the living room.

"You see, it's not often I refuse a cup of tea – but this is urgent. Maggie – you see, Lizzie is ill," Cioné had said. Maggie had side-lined her cup of tea instantly, and cut the power to the television before you could say 'It's time to face the Chaser', and immediately listened to what Cioné, and apparently married to Lizzie's rather dishy friend, had to say.

"We can take you to see her, if you'd like?" Cioné offered. "In space."

"Oh yes, I'd like that very much," Maggie stood up and took her mug to the kitchen. "Just give me a second," Maggie had bustled through the hallway. "Do I need anything?"

"Anything like what?" Cioné asked, bemused.

"I don't know," Maggie's head popped around the doorframe. "Welly boots? A raincoat?"

"No dear, don't worry," Cioné reassured her. "Just grab your spacesuit and we'll be on our way."

Maggie's face fell, and then suddenly she realised Cioné was mucking about. "Ooh, you're even more of a minx than your husband."

Cioné led Maggie out into the garden, thinking that Maggie had probably used 'minx' in the wrong context. A garden shed that hadn't been there previously was stood upon the spot the Doctor had previously wrecked with his strange police box.

"And yes," Maggie turned to her, wagging a bony finger at Cioné. "I _do_ know what minx means, thank you very much. Just because I'm old, dear, doesn't mean I can't have a bit of fun."

Maggie pushed open the door of the shed, and Cioné, who was busy admiring Maggie's collection of gnomes, heard her gasped, and feared that the lovely old woman was having a heart attack.

"Bloody hell!"

"Bit of fun?" Cioné said under her breath. "With women too?" Maggie, thankfully, hadn't heard under the sound of her own cursing – cursing that, from an old lady, one would find quite shocking.

Maggie turned around and revealed that she _had_ heard, saying, with a stern look on her face, "I'm game for anything."

 _Oops_ , Cioné thought. _Put my foot in it again._

Cioné followed Maggie into her TARDIS, and threw her patchwork jacket up over one of the coral beams stretching from the floor to the ceiling. Meanwhile, Maggie leaned up against one of the beams, perhaps not as shaken up as she might have been. After all, she always thought it strange that this Doctor chap and Lizzie had travelled around in such a cramped box. _Especially_ if he was married.

"You okay?" Cioné asked her, as she strode to the console, trying to look epic and mysterious, but in fact just looking a bit stupid.

Every year, Maggie saw people in the world who said, _blimey, this year is the weirdest of my life._ Maggie put it down to the fact that yes, as time progressed, new things that hadn't ever happened before would happen – and because those new things are new, and haven't happened before, then they would seem weird. She'd proposed that idea to her son once, who had laughed at her. Lizzie had rather agreed, however. Hence why both of them were reasonably open with the concept of the TARDIS.

However, it didn't stop her being in awe of the magnificence of the world. Perhaps that was why Maggie found herself happy in her old age – because she didn't stop being amazed.

"Oh, me?" she replied to Cioné, only just realising that she's said something. "Yes… yes, I'm – well, I'm worried about Lizzie, I suppose."

"It's been a struggle for her," Cioné placed a hand on Maggie's shoulder. "And there's no quick fix – but in the end, I think we'll get there. Oh look!" she suddenly exclaimed. "We're here!"

"Blimey. That was quick. I should like one of these to do my shopping with."

When Cioné led her outside, they had moved! And… they were in space. When Maggie looked out, she saw stars, stars like the sort she had never known if they were truly real or not – the sort that she was used to seeing as a screensaver more than anything else. It was beautiful, and although Maggie had long-accepted old age, and was no longer scared of death, there was something reaffirming about seeing those stars – as if she were truly living.

Cioné beckoned her down a corridor, and when Maggie turned, she began to get a grasp of the spaceship they were on. The two of them, at that moment, were on an almost circular corridor, and from there, Maggie could see that there was another corridor branching off, and leading to a great, central Hub. It seemed that this hub had several rings, like Saturn perhaps, although the central structure seemed more like the Shard, or another huge skyscraper.

"Where are we, then?" Maggie asked, following Cioné towards the central hub of the spaceship.

"The ShadowStar Alliance. They're like a sort of, space intervention agency thing."

Cioné led Maggie through the centre of the ship, and into a lift. Eventually, she said goodbye to Cioné, and a man took her the rest of the way to the office she was currently sat in, with the intimidating woman watching her. It was a glass office, giving a beautiful view of the stars, and making Maggie feel almost as if she were suspended in the vacuum of space.

The woman with the half-moon spectacles signed her form, and looked up at her.

"Margaret, let me explain what is happening. The universe has ended. Elizabeth has travelled halfway across the universe to find us, and is very ill. Furthermore, I should think we all have approximately one day to live. Are we clear?"

 **THE EIGHTH DOCTOR ADVENTURES**

 **SERIES 5 – EPISODE 13**

 **THE BAD-DREAM GIRL**

 **WRITTEN BY ED GOUNDREY-SMITH**

Downing Tower was a great glass skyscraper – the tallest in the Empire's Capitol, in fact, reaching high into the sky like a beacon of hope and prosperity. Or at least, that is how Evangeline Cullengate wanted it to be seen, as a sign of a new golden age upon the universe, prioritising jobs for humans, preventing Illegals from entering the city, and entering a glorious time of higher demand, and therefore higher prices.

The cloaked figure watched it from above, looking out over the world, and their skin crawled. Beneath this tower, and beneath the other banks and HQs and CEO's offices, was the undercity, where people lived in hovels, working all day with barely any pay, and forced into City Properties (tiny, one room shacks in the mud), where their entire families would either starve to heat their homes, or divide the little food they had amongst each other. These great pillars of 'hope' and 'prosperity' was constructed upon the shattered dreams of others and the cloaked figure hated all of it.

This ended tonight.

The figure slung their satchel upon their back, and continued.

Night had risen upon the city, but for many, under the section 372(6) of the Working Hours act 5037, work continued, to ensure optimum efficiency in the workplace. The lights in the skyscrapers remained on, lighting the city up, but the figure knew it was all just for show. The lights, however, in Downing Tower, were off, and in the corridor leading up to Evangeline's office, Number 10, something happened.

There was a blue light in the darkness, and a high-pitched wailing sound, that to one who knew it well, would be the cause of a sonic screwdriver. The figure wielding the device crept silently through the corridor with feline dexterity, knowing that if they made any noise at all, the alarms would be raised. The intruder was not terrified of what may come to them, however, if they were discovered. They had faced great terrors that had made them tough against the world, and Evangeline Cullengate had crafted her empire on fear.

They could see her, sat in her office, signing a document, her exquisite hand wielding that ink pen – the pen that had the power to do anything, no matter how dastardly it may be. She was alone, thankfully – though she could summon her guards at the push of a button. The figure didn't think that would be an issue, considering they were certain that given their rather marvellous escape, if they did say so themselves, Evangeline would want to stay and have a bit of a chat, before her Empire was torn down for good.

They were right outside the door now, and Evangeline still hadn't noticed. Her office was a great glass chamber, overlooking the city, with doors to a balcony behind the desk, so Evangeline could gaze out over her empire. She had a glass desk – in fact, everything in the office was ironically transparent. There was, however, a wicker dog basket in the corner, where Evangeline's two golden retrievers, Hugo and Edwin, slept.

With one swift moment, they pushed open the door, and stepped in to greet her, ready to treasure the look of surprise on her face.

When they entered, Evangeline looked up, and a look of confusion spread deep in the lines of her face.

* * *

 **Three weeks earlier**

Lizzie sat on the end of her bed, her eyes tracing the lines of the carpet, an idle form of procrastination, to stop herself from rising and facing the world. The very thought of picking herself up and carrying herself over to the door, and then out into the corridor, and then down the stairs, made her weary, as did the thought of talking to anyone, opening her mouth and forcing out some words with some meaning. And then having to eat, and drink, and all the other stuff humans had to do to survive.

The most tiring thought of all, however, was the thought of what she was going to do that day. After all, Lizzie Darwin had nothing to do. Of course, the ShadowStar's spaceship had lovely facilities for when the agents had time off – there was a library, flower gardens and a music room. There was even a cinema, a pool (which didn't interest her at all), a Jacuzzi hot-tub, a sauna, an on-board spa (they even employed a masseuse, along with an armada of spa-technicians), tennis courts, a gym, a quad-biking centre, and a shooting range. Apart from dabbling in the library, after which she took the books out and returned to her room, and briefly to the garden, she had attempted to play the piano, before realising she couldn't play much at the moment, and didn't have the concentration to sit in front of a piece of sheet music and learn it.

Suddenly, the ship's Tannoy system began to address the populace of the ShadowStar Alliance.

 **Good morning, staff, inhabitants and guests of the ShadowStar Alliance. All missions have been recalled following the end of the universe. We are expecting three rescue shuttles each carrying a thousand agents to dock within the hour.**

 _Oh god_ , Lizzie thought. _No, no, no, not more people._

 **Please be aware that all military zones are out of bounds to citizens. And now, the weather report, for our outdoor leisure facilities – sponsored by the ZZZ's intergalactic sale. Nice and sunny, however, there is a distinct chill in the air. Wrap up warm.**

 **Have a good day, everyone.**

So, the routine was normal. She woke up, had some food brought to her, maybe took a brief walk, and then she would come back to her room, maybe read two pages of a book before getting bored, before spending the rest of the day watching daytime TV, binging on boxsets, googling random crap, or reblogging 'tag yourself' memes, always tagging herself as whatever was closest to 'depressed trash'.

Generally, she felt like she was a complete waste of space who benefitted nobody at all and was instead just leeching off everyone else. She was stuck, in a disharmony of places, between needing a life, but in despising life altogether.

And as her days passed sluggishly onwards, and she constantly felt at a loose end, Lizzie Darwin realised that it was not only her days that were hollow and empty, the life and light sucked out of them, but it was her _life_ as well. This was going to go on forever, she realised, as she was about to start nibbling away at a sandwich one lunchtime, before deciding she didn't want to eat it or she'd end up being physically sick.

There was only one thing on her mind more terrifying than the fact she had nothing to do, and that was the fact that one day, she would have to move on. Although the thought of leaving it repulsed her, it was there, like a shadow on her back, whispering sullenly into her ear that she would one day, have to get up, have to go out, and have to get a life. The little capsule of her life at the moment could not be sustained forever.

Lizzie found herself sleeping a lot, except the sleep was never good. And that just made her want to sleep more, so she found herself stuck in a cycle of bad dreams eating away and infecting the one way out she had from this stupid place. She was constantly with a headache, a violent migraine pushing hard on the space behind her eyes. As her eyes traced the floor, her mouth was dry, and as she breathed it was like inhaling spikes, that sliced the inside of her throat into ribbons. There was a glass of water beside her bed, and she took it, raising it slowly to her mouth, with her hand shaking as it went. Lizzie took a tiny sip, and it felt good, but she spilt some of it down her, and hated herself for it because she couldn't even do normal things like drinking water, and so she sidelined the glass and went back to looking at the floor.

The floor, of which she decided she must analyse to give herself some sense of meaning in the world, was boring. Tonally, it felt very much in tune with the rest of the room, which was also, most definitely, _boring_. It was too clinical, and she hated the fact she felt like a… patient. When Lizzie had grumbled about it, Cioné had told her that she _was_ a patient who needed help. At the time, Lizzie had been very firm in refusing that help, though every day she felt guiltier and guiltier for taking that decision.

At that moment, as if somehow her guilt had been heard, there was a knock at the door.

"Come in," Lizzie instructed.

The door slowly opened, and the only face she wanted to see poked around the door.

"Hello Lizzie. Someone tells me that you're a bit sad."

* * *

Elizabeth and Maggie were stood in the corridor, where the entrance to the flower gardens lay. There was a wrought iron boot rack beside the door, and a set of pegs, upon which some coats were hung. As the Tannoy had said – it was cold outside. The seasonal simulation system and all that. Still, both Lizzie and Maggie – actually, mainly Maggie – fancied the fresh air (although Maggie was certain, in that certainty that tends to befall one with age, that it would do Lizzie some good).

So, Lizzie put on some boots – a lovely red pair. Maggie took a yellow mackintosh from the hook, and helped Lizzie into it, as if not a day had passed since Lizzie were a little girl, and they were going off to hunt for minibeasts and look at all the different plants, and the other types of wildlife that could live because of them. It was as if between them, twenty years hadn't passed, and they were the same people as they had always been. Lizzie knew that wasn't true. Maggie was pretty certain herself. When Lizzie was ready, something that Maggie had payed special attention to, in a very motherly way, Maggie herself put on a coat and some boots, and they opened the door leading out to the flower gardens.

Although Maggie had been rather welcoming of space, and time travel, and intimidating women with half-moon spectacles, one thing she did find remarkable was that a spaceship could have outdoor space. Of course, it was not real outdoor space, unless one wished for all of the liquid in their body to boil and their faces to compress. But the simulation was so near-perfect, that it almost felt real. As they took their first steps onto the grass, with its morning dew wiping on the side of the wellies, it felt as if one were stepping onto the dewy soil of an autumn morning. They were big gardens, too, stretching on for far ahead of her, until the rolling rows of perfectly kept flowers merged with the skyline. The ShadowStar Alliance hired gardeners, and it showed, as the lawns were exquisitely kept, mowed into lines of middle-class retiree preciseness, each path with a middle-class border of pretty flowers, of violets and crimsons and azures, some colour coordinated but many not, giving it a feeling forced naturalness as well. The sky above them were an ashen grey, but streaked with bursts of sunrise pink and orange.

It was, of course, worth noting that the simulation was only _nearly_ perfect. One could taste the distinct taste of Fake Oxygen (the brand name, hence the capitalisation), and the slight rubbery texture of the dew (from Hydro Artificia, a company specialising in a multitude of artificial natural liquids).

They walked, a little bit awkwardly at first. What had they become? Lizzie and Maggie, walking awkwardly. Neither of them would ever think that day would come – even Lizzie, who expected everyone to relegate her because of that inherent awkwardness. And Maggie – well, ever since she'd first met Lizzie, she'd secretly believed she'd found a surrogate daughter for life.

"This is us, now," Maggie mused.

"Yeah," Lizzie replied, because she couldn't be bothered to think of anything else to say. She just… didn't care.

Oh god, she felt so guilty about that. Lizzie felt guilty about most things but the fact her mind had just dared to stray into such territory when Margaret Shepherd was concerned, that was perhaps the final nail in the coffin of unrepentance.

"Look at us _now_ ," Maggie suggested, waving at the National-Trust-in-space pristine gardens around them. "We're in space…"

Lizzie may have dreamed of being able to hear something like that, like something out of a storybook, all of her life. Except it didn't bring up at that same feeling of stomach-turning excitement, of the happy butterflies, that it had done so long ago. Instead, space had become a byword for the endless darkness in the sky – that darkness, so prevalent in the universe, was practically space's poster boy, and Lizzie resented it all.

"You did it, though," Maggie stopped at the end of the path, in front of a stone observation platform, with an ornate carved railing that had developed a mossy-like age. Beneath them was a lake, the edge surrounded by reeds and wildflowers, all sorts of which Maggie, a keen gardener, didn't recognise from Earth. Lilly pads floated nonchalantly across its mirror top, which displayed a reflection of that sky above them, the picture of misery but with little flickers of something else too. "You wanted to escape your life, and here you are…"

"Out of the frying pan, and into the fire…"

Maggie gave her a worried look. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Lizzie shook her head like a grumpy teenager, as if she hadn't grown up at all since seeing the entirety of space and time. "Dunno. But it's just made me feel…," Lizzie's voice was trailing off because she didn't have an answer. Actually, she did. "It's made me feel awful, because I saw it. I saw some really… beautiful stuff. I was happier than I've ever been in my entire life. But it… stabbed me in the back, because that's just how it always works out for me."

Maggie sighed and shook her head, and Lizzie thought she was going to declare how irritated she was.

"You faced _everything_ , right?" Maggie said. "Recently you've done _everything_ you've dreamed of and you've run into it head-on, and let me tell you something, love, that's more than I could have ever done at your age. You have come so, _so far_. You hadn't a hope in the world and then, you _did_. And right, I'm not going to pretend to understand a thing you were talking about when you phoned me, but let me tell you what I always understood – that you were _happy_. That you had found your place in the universe, the place you had been searching for, for so long. And I felt proud that Lizzie Darwin, a girl who is like a daughter to me, had done that. And guess what? _I still am_ _proud_."

Suddenly, Lizzie realised she was crying, as a tear dripped off her face, and mingled with the dew below – the one natural droplet beneath their feet.

"Because you," Maggie continued. "You fight, every single day. I wouldn't blame you for giving up, the world is bloody awful, but you fight on. And you're so strong, because of that, Lizzie, and I will always, _always_ be proud of you."

Lizzie turned to the woman opposite her, who now, for the little old lady she had become, seemed to stand taller than Lizzie had seen before.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, and even though she didn't realise it, the tears kept coming. "I can't believe – I just can't."

"I know, love," Maggie pulled her in, and hugged her, and she felt her shoulder become damp with Lizzie's tears. She didn't care, though, and before she knew it, Maggie was crying too. And in that garden, of light and life, that garden that lay under the shadow of a dismal sky, the clouds began to clear, and perhaps a bit more sunlight burst through that day.

* * *

The next morning, Maggie woke up after a less-glorious-than-usual night's sleep. Although in her old age, she normally slept quite well, perhaps having found some contentment she once lacked, the last night was no evidence of that newfound enriched slumber. Her dreams were eaten away, of worry and anxiety for Lizzie, and of the dredges of past times she had always wanted to forget, resurrected by seeing Lizzie so afraid of everything.

Eventually, at five o'clock, she had just given up sleeping, and put on her television to see if there was anything good on. _Oh…_ Countdown was still a thing, apparently? Except, this version she was watching was in some intergalactic language that Maggie didn't recognise. However, she was quite certain that she could pick out a few words that perhaps had links to Latin languages that had sprung up on Earth. Ancient times that for her, in comparison to this, were modern history.

It was times like this when Maggie wished she really cared what the future was like, but she still didn't. She didn't care whether Nick Hewer had eventually been replaced by a cyborg, in fact the only thing that she cared about particularly was that Rachel Riley was now not Rachel Riley, and had been replaced with a particularly sexualised robot. When seeing it, she quickly switched off, and instead spent the time mulling over things that didn't need to be mulled over.

Maggie Shepherd was an old, tired woman, but sometimes when she looked in Lizzie's eyes, Lizzie seemed older, and more tired, than Maggie had ever done in her life.

When it came seven o'clock, she went to knock on Lizzie's door. Her first medical assessment was today, and yesterday they had been determined to do it properly. However, there was no response, and Maggie had expected this. Lizzie had even forewarned her of it yesterday.

"Lizzie, love? You there?"

Maggie gave another knock. Suspiciously, there was no noise coming from the room at all. And in a sudden moment of panic, Maggie forced the door – 52nd century architecture was a lot flimsier than 21st century architecture, and Maggie had kicked down many doors in her life. When it swung limply open on its hinges, Lizzie was nowhere to be seen.

 _Oh, no, no, no_.

Upon the bed, and the crisply made sheets, was a pile of library books, perfectly stacked. And on top of the books, a post-it note had been placed, simply reading,

 _Thank you, so much._

 _I am going to get the hope I need._

 _Lizzie_

Maggie grimaced, because she did not think this was going to end well.

Then she realised she was crying, because all she wanted was for Lizzie to be safe.

* * *

 **Three weeks later**

Evangeline glanced up over her glass desk, looking over the two crystal pen pots and quite an expensive marble paperweight. She gently pushed her chair back from the table – and as her door opened, Hugo and Edwin began to stir.

"So, Doctor," she spoke, her cold, clipped voice cutting through the night's silence. "You escaped…"

"Yes," came a voice from the shadows. Evangeline turned pale when she recognised it, and when Lizzie Darwin stepped into her office, wielding the Doctor's sonic screwdriver and his satchel, she turned even paler. "But this is all me."

Lizzie definitely treasured the moment. Evangeline did not remain fazed for long, however. She always liked to maintain that having conquered business and politics, there was very little that could faze her.

So she began to applaud Lizzie, bestowing her with a mocking round. "Oh, _well done_."

Lizzie took the seat opposite the table, and let Ulysses jump up onto her lap. The old woman opposite didn't scare her, not anymore. Not since leaving the ShadowStar alliance. It was as if she had taken all those fears, and all those anxieties, and channelled them into something determined. Something good, however, she was not yet sure. But now, she felt stronger than she had been before, and more powerful, and something else that she wasn't quite sure of.  
To her, Evangeline was nothing, and Lizzie was determined to reduce her Empire to dust. Although not one to bear a grudge, Lizzie Darwin had finally been pushed too far, and the Prime Minister had to answer for her crimes. _All_ of them.

"Hmm," she mused. "You took a gamble with the memory graveyard, tried to prime it as your superweapon. And _then_ ," Lizzie took great delight in making Evangeline feel as guilty as possible, even though she knew Evangeline probably didn't care. "It turns out, you accidentally destroy everything that ever happened."

"Oh, Elizabeth, you're so wrong –"

"No!" Lizzie interrupted her, and Evangeline shut up, admittedly slightly taken aback. " _God_ , I'm not just going to be pushed around by you anymore. I ran from you for a long time, and it hurt me. A lot. This ends now, Evangeline."

Evangeline sighed. Clearly she didn't care at all, clearly she was too stuck up in her ivory tower. Then, as if reading from a script, said "you really should learn to ignore what the media are telling you. It's _misinformation_ , all of it. The universe hasn't ended."

Lizzie took the sonic screwdriver and used it to project a 3D hologram in the office. Evangeline shrugged and shook her head, not a clue what it meant. Lizzie knew that she did know, however. The woman was good at mind games, she wanted to make Lizzie not believe herself. That was how these people always won. Lizzie was very accustomed to these mind games, having half the time, played them on herself.

"You are here," Lizzie pointed to a stray dot on the 3D map. "This is the Empire. There's a moon there, another just… here," she pointed. "And that's it."

Evangeline tapped a button on the control panel of her desk, and the screwdriver's hologram vanished, replaced by another projection, showing the universe in its previous state, minus a moon or two. She barely had to lift a finger to destroy Lizzie's projection, no matter how far Lizzie had travelled to prove the stupid woman wrong.

"It's all _lies_. And do you know something, Elizabeth?" Evangeline leaned over the desk. "You think you're _special_. Let me tell you, that you are not. You are nothing in the universe. You have to work to be anything bigger. You cannot just get handouts," Evangeline gestured to the bustling city behind her. "That's the attitude I have brought to government."

"You've brought –"

Lizzie stopped, when she looked outside. The city landscape was dropping away – not obviously, but there was a black, vacant whiteness creeping up on the world around them. Not obviously, not… viciously, just… slowly lapping up at the metropolis, slowly enveloping buildings, and preventing them from ever have existed. Evangeline looked at it, and with a casual look upon her face, she shrugged. "Oh, blessed Memory Graveyard!" Evangeline tutted. "Ending the universe."

Lizzie looked Evangeline dead in the eye, and without any hesitation, or fear of coming across as blunt, for that was exactly what was intended, she declared to the Prime Minister, "Resign."

Evangeline giggled her patronisingly polite giggle. "It doesn't work quite like that. I was elected. And knowing you, Elizabeth, I'm sure you are passionate about upholding the principles of democracy."

Lizzie did not care. She had decided that sooner rather than later, it would be time to deconstruct the entire Empire.

"Not when they've elected someone like you."

"Oh, for goodness' sake –"

Then suddenly, the doors to Evangeline's office crashed open, with nowhere near the same elegance that Lizzie had mastered to make her entrance as dramatic as possible. Stumbling through in a clatter of doors and tangled limbs, two women collapsed onto the floor face first.

"Oh my god Mum why did you kick it you completely killed our dramatic entrance."

Cioné and Iris stood up, and awkwardly brushed themselves off. Lizzie was quite relieved they had turned up, considering time was ticking on, and Lizzie wasn't quite sure she'd be able to dramatize the overthrowing of the bourgeoise and the establishment of a socialist state without actually having the reinforcements to carry out on her threat. Lizzie glanced down at said reinforcements, and realised that this was going to be harder than they initially thought.

"Hello!" Cioné offered Evangeline a sheepish wave, before turning to Lizzie. "Sorry about that, the lift got stuck."

"I had this place designed to the optimum specification," Evangeline seemed unfazed by the entrance. "The lifts _do not_ get stuck."

"Haha," Iris muttered. "Yeah she's seen through us, the lifts didn't get stuck, I sort of got my leg jammed in the door and it just wouldn't – would it?"

"No, no," Cioné confirmed. "Just wouldn't budge."

So much for peace, bread and land, Lizzie shrugged.

"For goodness sake," Evangeline interrupted them. "If this is the revolution then I pity the people you're revolting for. Three bumbling fools! And what else?"

Lizzie turned to her then, for at that moment all they seemed like was three bumbling fools – they were, in fact, ready for this. "And when they find out about what you're truly like? The whole planet beneath you."

"And you're going to take me down _how_ , exactly?"

Now was the moment, when the revolution would truly come into play. They had orchestrated this well, every second planned to the letter, and when Lizzie said her next sentence, it would begin.

"Three bumbling fools. Everyone on the planet. And _this_."

After a few seconds of awkward silence, with Evangeline looking sarcastically around her, she laughed. And chortled and chortled away, to the point of where it was ugly and her pretences died around her. Lizzie, Iris and Cioné stood in the centre of the room, looking a bit stupid, and each of them terrified that what they had been planning had not worked at all.

"Well, then, the _Golden Girls_ ," Evangeline spoke between her laughter-laden breaths. "Sorry ladies. Time is up. I had hoped that if there were to be a revolution, it'd be rather more exciting."

Evangeline pressed another button on her desk, and guards spilled into the room, with much more dexterity than Cioné and Iris' anticlimactic tumble. Within seconds ten guards had semi-automatic guns trained on the three of them, and in the surrounding buildings at least 50 snipers all with cross-hairs aimed precisely at their foreheads.

It was now or never, if something dramatic didn't randomly occur within the next five minutes, then the three of them would be shot at from all sides and turned into human pincushions but with bullets instead of pins, obviously. Each second seemed to take an eternity and Lizzie looked at all of the guards in the eye and glanced over to see if she could spot any of the snipers, just so she could devise another way out before the inevitable occurred. Then finally, she clocked Evangeline's eyes, and as those eternal seconds wore on, she saw something change within them, as if in slow motion. It was the typical dilemma of the speed of light being faster than the speed of sound, as Lizzie saw Evangeline's face fall before she heard the sound that was to save their lives forever.

"Aaaand here comes Blanche," Cioné's face curled into a smile.

It was the sound of hope, the sound that had descended onto oppressed worlds and liberated the masses. It was the sound that stopped children crying, and the sound that brought happiness to all. At least, that was what Lizzie had once thought. Now, it was merely the sound of her sighing with relief.

Except, regardless of her disillusionment with the entire universe, there was something about that metal breathing that took her back to the first time she'd stepped into an anomaly of human understanding and logic, and had her life transformed forever. She remembered that fairytale wonder as she'd seen the stars so close, and so far at the same time. As she'd seen that strange disharmony between homely and distant.

And as she'd seen the sad man come to life in front of her.

It was growing louder, now, that rhythmic sound, and slowly through the nothingness, as if the universe had always destined for this moment to come, a strange blue box began to come into vision standing on the far side of the room. Great gusts of wind like the force of nature materialising before them lashed through the office, blowing Evangeline's papers all over the room, and causing the guards to squint to take in the impossible sight.

The box was in front of them now.

The TARDIS had arrived.

The doors swung open, and stood in the doorway, was the Doctor.

"Three bumbling fools, everyone on the planet – and a Doctor."

It was all he said, but it was enough to send chills down all of their spines. Many of them had heard legends of the Doctor and his immense power, but none had ever seen it in front of them, as they were witnessing at that moment. All of the guards, and Evangeline herself (although she did not say it), were terrified at that moment, of how the Doctor would exercise these legendary powers.

Cioné glanced at her watch. "About bloody time."

"Yeah," Lizzie grumbled. "You made me look stupid."

"Not even a 'thanks for rescuing me'?" the Doctor gave them all one of his irresistibly charming grins.

"I'll thank you later, dear," Cioné winked at him. Iris, meanwhile, nearly vomited inside her mouth and wanted the ground to swallow her up. Parents talking like that in public, no. Straight sex, deffo no.

"I should be late more often –"

"Both of you," Iris interrupted. "Stop it, now, please, I wish I'd got my leg stuck in that _stupid_ lift."

"And my darling daughter," the Doctor took her hand and kissed it. "How are you?"

"All the worse for seeing you," she looked down at the floor to try and hide the fact she was smiling.

"Why am I Blanche?" the Doctor turned back to his wife.

Evangeline eventually coughed, to remind them that they still had 10 guards and 50 snipers pointing at them. Eventually, the four of them realised that they were sitting ducks and could be bulleted into mincemeat within seconds, and so, as one would expect in such a situation, the Doctor bounced over to the far window and looked out over the city, covered in its thick blanket of midnight.

"Hmm. What do you think, girls?"

Cioné checked her watch again. "Half an hour."

Iris nodded in confirmation. "Deffo."

Evangeline whistled, and her two dogs leapt up and jogged over to her, slumping obediently down beside her feet. It was as if, perhaps, she were scared of the Doctor. Which of course, she would never admit. Except, he had somehow escaped the most advanced sub-dimension in the entire universe. "Would you please explain this _ridiculous_ exercise?" she demanded. "And, I should like to know how you escaped the Memory Graveyard."

The Doctor grimaced, and a grimace from the Doctor was always the harbinger of doom. "Amount of time until the Empire falls off the edge of the universe. Oh, and I just did."

Ignoring the looks of his three companions, the Doctor decided that was a satisfactory answer.

Evangeline waved casually. "Hmm. Nonsense."

"But you _know_ that it is true. Both things," the Doctor protested. "Evangeline, you're clever –"

"That doesn't mean you're not-stupid, by the way," Iris interrupted, determined to make sure that her dad didn't accidentally side with her.

"What she said," the Doctor agreed, noting his daughter's concerns. "I cannot fathom why you are letting the universe come to an end. What could _possibly_ be in it for you?"

"If it's all well and good," Evangeline had grown tired of their circular conversation. She was not going to give the petulant little man any of the information he desired, and she knew that he knew it. "I'd like to see your _epic_ revolution now."

"The revolution is on hold," the Doctor said.

Evangeline collapsed into creases of laughter, the Doctor having just thrown away the great threat he and his little gang had been building up to ever since they arrived. The guards looked around awkwardly, after all, the fabled Doctor was doing nothing that warranted the writing of any fables. "Guards, leave us."

Reluctantly, the guards did as they were told. And then, there was only the five of them. The Doctor, Lizzie, Cioné, Iris… and Evangeline.

"Those guards will be dead in a second," the Doctor grimaced, as all of them left the room. Evangeline sat back in her chair, as if to say, 'do I look like I care?'.

Meanwhile, Iris groaned, as if all she'd been looking forward to all day was overthrowing Evangeline. And now, as she looked at the old woman, and her refusal to care about the men she had just condemned to death, she was desperate for it. Even more so.

"Ladies, inside the TARDIS," the Doctor scampered back over and pushed open the doors. "I have… business to attend to."

Iris looked hacked off, but when she saw the way her mother looked at her, she did as she was told. In fact – they all did as they were told – leaving the Doctor and Evangeline alone.

"What's the point of all this, hmm?" Evangeline was certain that the Doctor had just turned up to waste 10 minutes of her time and scatter her papers across her office with his silly little box. "Turn up, prance about in my office for a while, and then leave. What have you gained?"

The Doctor's face was ambiguous, and, as many of those who had faced the Doctor's wrath would gladly agree, his face of ambiguity was often his most dangerous. "Because we've put the fear of god into you. Myself, Lizzie, Cioné, and Iris."  
"But the universe is only going to exist for… what?" Evangeline glanced at her watch. "Another 45 minutes? Why could you _possibly_ want to do that?"

"Because there's something different about you, Evangeline. The universe is ending, and you don't care. And I don't know why that is – either you're going to go down with this sinking ship of a universe, or you're going to accept my offer for help. Come with us, and I'll get you out of here."

This was the Doctor's final test. Her answer to this would confirm what he'd been desperate to know, it would... bring him to the conclusion that he'd been looking for. Not fully understanding, but at least… grasping, the truth behind Evangeline Cullengate.

Evangeline Cullengate spoke.

"No."

And that was all he needed to hear. Because Evangeline would never, ever go down with a sinking ship.

Somehow, she had another way out… and the Doctor knew that they would meet again. Evangeline Cullengate somehow had a means of escaping a dying universe – and that meant immense power, and immense technology. And it meant… that she wasn't just a human being, not just a citizen of the Empire.

The Doctor stepped into the TARDIS, and it left Evangeline's office.

* * *

He bounded to the console, a quick romantic twirl on his way. Lizzie was sat on the leather seat beside the console, while Cioné had already been prepping the TARDIS for take-off. Iris, meanwhile, was sat on top of a shelving unit that she probably shouldn't have been sat on.

"Darling, your console is in a horrendous state," Cioné picked her way through the buttons and switches, and her husband joined her, and soon they were piloting the TARDIS together. "You're too rough with the machinery."

"Oh yes?" the Doctor yanked the dematerialisation lever, soon they were proving that two pilots did not make TARDIS flight less bumpy than usual. In fact, they probably made it worse.

"You don't quite have my delicate touch with the fluid pump," Cioné giggled, because she was too immature to carry off innuendos flirtatiously and ended up laughing at them mid-delivery.

The Doctor spun around the console and then turned to see Lizzie. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," she lied. "Yeah, I'm fine."

The Doctor gave her a concerned look. "Do say –"

"I'm fine," she reassured him, and the Doctor, getting the message (but only temporarily – though he would not admit that to her), turned away. Lizzie was definitely not fine, and she didn't know why. That was the story of her life, it seemed. But now, it was as if she were so close to something she wanted most of all, and yet, so far away at the same time.

"Iris, get on the Star-Forecast," the Doctor told his daughter, a not-fatherly order delivered in a fatherly manner. "Check all satellites within a good few light years of our destination."

"On it," Iris grabbed the TARDIS' screen and span it around to the other side of the console, tapping something quickly into the keyboard.

As she watched them all at work, piloting the TARDIS, Lizzie realised that this was the place she felt at home. She had been with Iris as she'd grown up, she'd lived their hundreds of years of family life, but only in the space of two weeks. Lizzie knew these people well, and they knew her, and she was comfortable there.

Except, she could not help but acknowledge how alone she felt at the same time, sat there in the TARDIS like a complete lemon with nothing to do, watching as everyone else played their part. She sometimes worried that her part would forever be outsider. The three of them were Time Lords, they had all this huge universal knowledge, and then there was her.

Her with her stupid head, who just did nothing but bring them all down.

"The old gang!" the Doctor grinned, his family at the console with him. "Back together again."

And there was the ever-present feeling that something she had been hoping to avoid, would become unavoidable soon. Cioné and Iris knew as well, but Lizzie was almost certain that they were not as bothered as she were.

Cioné stepped back and gave the console a bemused look, as if it were deliberately playing up. "Hmm, brakes pads have shattered…"

"It doesn't have brake pads…," the Doctor scathed.

"Yes, it does! I _said_ that your console was in a dire state…"

At that moment, the TARDIS gave an almighty shake, throwing Lizzie off the seat and on top of Ulysses, who purred an angry purr, before leaping up and darting under the console. Cioné and the Doctor both tried the tricks that they had learned, but both of them trying to salvage the TARDIS' steadily worsening flight pattern probably only made things worse. Lizzie stood up and grabbed onto the console, the other three people doing the same.

"Iris," the Doctor said. "Dematerialisation pattern, what's happening?"

Iris was not quite sure what the screen was saying – considering it defied everything she _thought_ it should be saying. "We're… we're coming through the atmosphere –"

And they stopped.

Without any warning at all, all four of them were thrown away from the console, clattering like ragdolls into the shelves bordering the room, sending books and ornaments and miscellaneous tat all over the floor of the control room, before suddenly, none of them could see anything, as all lights in the TARDIS became dead. The Doctor estimated, as he lifted a rather thick illustrated edition of the complete _Lord of the Rings_ off his foot, that the TARDIS had just crashed into the ground at an unmeasurable speed, hence the lack of warning.

A silence enveloped the TARDIS, and it was like being in a graveyard. There is something truly unnerving about being in a dead TARDIS. It all begins with the ear-splitting crash of the infinite number of doors leading all over time and space slamming shut in an instant, and then the time rotor descends, so it lies sullenly at the base of the console, as if to emphasise its deadness. However, nobody hears the final breath of the time rotor, because everybody is too busy getting their heads around the fact the TARDIS is bigger on the inside. Which, for anyone travelling in the TARDIS, is perhaps a peculiar thing to wonder, but it occurs as suddenly the dimension-engine begins to waver. As everyone with any knowledge of Gallifreyan science knows, actual dimensional deterioration takes around a thousand years, but the crippling process begins from the moment a TARDIS breathes its last, and on anyone inside the vehicle, it starts by taking an unnerving toll. There is a sudden feeling that you are not where you think you are, a feeling of depersonalisation, as if you are looking in on your body from elsewhere.

The four of them in the TARDIS tried to forget about the side effects, as they all knew that they had the fairly important thing of the end of the universe to contend with.

"Hello?" Cioné was the first to speak. "Iris? Are you alright?"

Her voice emerged from one of the far corners of the control room. "Yep!"

"Good o, Lizzie?"

"Hi!" Lizzie slowly got up onto her feet, like a baby taking its first steps, tentatively shuffling across the floor slightly. There was something terribly eerie about the machine. It was as if it were dead, as if the lights switching off had been like the machine's eyes shutting. Lizzie remembered when she first took a step inside, and she'd been in awe of how… alive it was. Now the TARDIS had no light or sound or anything.

But the strangest thing was when she looked up, to see that the stars in the ceiling had gone.

Cioné continued her rollcall. "Hubbie?"

"The hydraulic suspension boosters increase the relative gravity and cushion it," the Doctor answered his name with a technobabble explanation none of the others cared out. "No different to what happens whenever we normally land, just bigger."

"Good, thanks for that," Cioné raised an eyebrow, as she too began to find her way back onto her feet.

"I've got no idea what you just said…," Iris waved her torch around the control chamber. It was as if they were archaeologists exploring some long-forgotten tomb, with everything they did being by the light of a torch. Except pressing on all of their minds, was that they were going to find nothing inside the TARDIS. No… the truth of the matter was going to become evident outside, when they eventually discovered what was busy bringing the universe to an end.

Eventually, Iris' torchlight spotlighted Lizzie, and they all saw her staring up at the blackness. Although not with the same fascination as her, the three others also looked at that endless night that could be seen from the observatory.

"No stars," Iris acknowledged.

"They've all burned out," the Doctor picked his way over a bookshelf that, in the calamity, had toppled over onto the floor. Over the rubble he hopped, and moved his way over to the door. He couldn't think too much of the fact that every star in the universe had gone, because what they had to do was urgent. "Here we are…"

"The end of the universe," Cioné guided her away from the observatory. It would do for now, but only as a temporary distraction. "Doctor, we need to get out, the TARDIS is falling off."

"Falling off _where_?" to Lizzie, it seemed to be that the TARDIS was fine. Though, she was still aware that she had no true idea of the science behind the TARDIS.

The Doctor grimly agreed. "Everyone out."

"Where are we?" Iris negotiated her way over the ruins of the bookshelves. As Lizzie stumbled over them, she caught sight of her book - her favourite book, _The Good-Dream Girl_. That well-thumbed novel, the one she'd held tightly onto ever since she was a kid. It was one of those novels that had just... got her. It gave her hope, and it made her smile, even in her darkest days. That's why she'd brought it on the TARDIS with her - because she always needed that hope. It was at that moment. that Lizzie thought she needed some hope. So, she took the book with her.

"The eye of the storm…," the Doctor mused, as he flung open the doors.

"Which is?" Iris stepped out of the TARDIS.

"Not a clue…"

Cioné left as well, and the Doctor, after giving Lizzie a kindly smile, helped her out of the box.

* * *

The memories came back to Lizzie within an instant. In fact, Lizzie had only placed one foot outside of the TARDIS before she knew exactly where she was.

Places that you know often retained some kind of… resonance, Lizzie had decided. In absolutely every way, from the sights, the sounds, the way everything felt. And the smell – in fact, that was probably what had led Lizzie to make the initial identification, considering it was completely dark, wherever they were, and other than Iris' torch, nothing could be seen. Often, in one's head, when revisiting somewhere you once knew well, it could be like travelling in time, with all those elements of sensual recognition coming together to form an image of the place as you once knew it.

As Lizzie stepped further out of the TARDIS, _The Good-Dream Girl_ in hand, it was the same principle. Except a bit more literal.

Within seconds she had identified the entrance way to her former care home.

The TARDIS was parked in front of the front-doors, and ahead of them was the main hallway, with a great set of stairs leading to the upstairs, and ways branching off into the living room, the kitchen, and the main office. It was a fairly unassuming spot for the end of the universe, that former hub of her childhood home, with its patterned wallpaper and its stained carpet and that oh-so-familiar musty smell. There was a noticeboard on the wall, and to it were pinned the same old repetitive notices about fire procedures and rules, and then some others regarding events that changed every so often. Dusty artworks hung up on the walls, reminders of the fact that the kids who lived there were only there because they had to be, and nothing more.

Iris had meandered out far into the centre of the hall, in search of anything interesting. The Doctor gave Lizzie a look, to make sure she was alright, because he too could remember where they were. Lizzie intercepted his look and nodded, but Cioné saw as well.

"Where are we?" she eventually asked, caution heavy in her voice.

"This," Lizzie looked around her, as the building didn't seem any different as it had ever done during the universe's life. "Was where I grew up."

There was a strange notion of acceptance as she said it, made weirder by the fact she had her family around her, and that there seemed to be no life in the place where she had once lived. Buildings made noises at night, the rattling of pipes, people getting up to go to the loo, floorboards that randomly seemed to creak… but Dunsworth House was making none. Lizzie was quite certain that if she went upstairs, all the beds would be empty.

"It makes sense," the Doctor shrugged. "The memory graveyard is constructed on this spot in another dimension. When Lizzie, Iris and myself came here before, we got here through that lake in the forest nearby. The manor, when Lizzie and I went ghost hunting, was built on this spot, and they were the ghosts of the memory graveyard," he took his sonic screwdriver from his pocket and began to scan the building. He knew there was a link between the memory graveyard and this care home, but he had no idea what it was yet. And he was also fairly certain that the others knew something he didn't…

"Are there any lights?" Cioné traced the walls for a switch, but couldn't find anything. Lizzie found them in an instant, and flicked two of them on, deliberately trying to give the place a nightly, cozy glow.

Suddenly Iris' voice came from the room next door. "Oh my god."

The Doctor slipped his sonic screwdriver quickly back into his jacket pocket, joining Iris in the living room. Cioné and Lizzie quickly followed, swerving around the sofas and armchairs to the patio doors, which overlooked the impressive garden below.

It was made even more impressive by the blinding white light which burst through the conifers at the far end of the lawn. It was as if the sun were setting only a good 800 metres from where they stood, with the almost-divine light bathing the entire room, and causing the four of them to squint.

"What's the light to do with?" Lizzie placed a hand on the patio window, just as she'd done when she was a kid. "Guessing it's something to do with the Memory Graveyard?"

"Literally, we are on the edge of time," the Doctor explained, the four souls, lonely in the whole universe, admiring its final sunset. "It's like we're on a cliff, and there's a landslide. And gradually, it's all falling away beneath us. Except… there's nothing. Nowhere to fall, nowhere to land. There's just nothing. Forever. Beyond that light… is nothing," the Doctor turned to speak to his daughter without taking his eyes off the light, as if it were an enemy approaching steadily closer. Which was funny, because it was. "Iris. Star-Watch."

Iris glanced at her phone. "Ax5, Helix 7, Kevin's Apple, hey, even Helios 2, there goes Evangeline, good riddance…"

"We're on the edge," Lizzie whispered, as if there were someone out there that could hear her – even though nobody was, and nobody ever would be.

The Doctor clapped his hands. "Right. Last four people left in the universe, looks like it's up to us to save it.

Cioné looked around at all of them. "The Golden Girls."

"Cartman, Stan, Kenny and Kyle?" Iris suggested.

"Samantha, Miranda, Charlotte and Carrie," the Doctor decided. Cioné gave him a bemused look, a little lost as to what her husband got up to in his spare time. The Doctor, meanwhile, had already crossed to the other side of the room. Cioné sighed, and followed him, and so did Lizzie, while Iris leapt over the back of the sofa and joined then.

"Okay, questions," the Doctor began their group brainstorm. "Why is Evangeline so okay with destroying the universe. What good does she get out of a destroyed universe?"

"Did you feel it as well?" Cioné looked to her husband. Of course, that encounter in Downing Tower had been the first time Cioné had met Evangeline Cullengate up close - and it was hard to ignore something pressing. A strange familiarity, and yet a distaance as well.

"I've felt it ever since I met her," the Doctor walked into the office and tried to turn on the computer. It wasn't functioning, unsurprisingly. "She's more than just... a normal... individual who decided to run for office. How did she do it?"

Lizzie spoke plainly. "You've felt... what?"

And to Lizzie, it seemed obvious, when she thought about it. No matter how different Evangeline was, she'd just... won an election. How did all these people come to power in the first place? Exploiting fear of the unknown. It made sense that Evangeline would be doing the same, to make sure she could retain her firm grasp over the people.

The Doctor nodded in agreement. "I don't know... I don't think it's anything major. Whoever she is, I'm certain that I've never clapped eyes on her before."

"Right," Cioné took over, because it seemed like they weren't going to get anywhere otherwise. "How do we actually deal with this?"

"We need something to hold us back to… prevent us from falling out of the universe."

Cioné pointed to the TARDIS. "Iris, TARDIS shields, use your teenagery techy skills to reroute them and surround this building."

"Mum. I can't connect my phone to the internet."

The Doctor sat back in the office chair and gave Iris a grumpy parental glare. "What's the point of having a teenage daughter if she can't use a computer better than her parents?"

"Then… try and learn, I don't know. In fact, I'll help you. Darling Lizzie," she turned to Lizzie who had been stood awkwardly in the corner of the room during the whole conversation. "Get him to do something useful."

"I'll try…"

Cioné vanished, leaving the Doctor and Lizzie alone in the office. They'd been in the same office together. It felt like ages had passed since that'd happened. So much had happened in that time.

There's something else…," the Doctor racked his brains. There was one big piece of the puzzle missing, the 'x' to make the equation work. And he just couldn't work out what it was.

"This place."

Again, Lizzie was blunt, because it had been preying on her mind. Everything was tied to her, somehow. Except… she had a feeling she knew why. When she looked down, Lizzie realised she was still carrying that copy of _The Good-Dream Girl_ around with her.

"Lizzie, are you alright?" the Doctor stood up and walked over to her. He knew there was something up, he could read her like a book. Except, he always thought he could. Maybe Cleopatra had been right, all that time ago, perhaps Lizzie Darwin could lie to him, and he would never even know.

"Yep. Course I am."

"I don't think you are," the Doctor placed a hand on her cheek. "There's something you're not telling me."

Lizzie stepped grumpily away from him, so instead of sulking in the corner of the room she was sulking by the door. "Look, you've got a universe to be saving, so…"

"And I will let the universe die to make sure you're okay."

She knew that it was a stupid thing for him to say, but he said it with such earnestness. However, she did not let it get to him. Lizzie would not tell him the truth just yet, for she was quite certain that he would find both of his answers in the same place. And she knew he would. She knew the Doctor like that.

"Somewhere in this building, the Memory Graveyard is being streamed over the whole universe. It must be, that's the only reason this building is still… intact."

He grabbed his sonic screwdriver, scanning for the source of the energy. It wasn't far, and he followed it, with Lizzie tentatively following behind, as if it didn't mean as much to her as it meant to him. As if somehow, she knew where this was going to end up.

The Doctor clambered slowly up the stairs, and with each step, Lizzie felt another part of her retreat from the outside world. Step by step, the Doctor was nearing the truth, and it would only be another few minutes before the game would be up. They were at the top of the stairs now, and the Doctor listened closer to his sonic screwdriver, after all, if anything was going to tell him the truth, it would be the sonic screwdriver now. The Doctor turned again, up another set of stairs, heading towards the few bedrooms at the very top of the house. Lizzie, by now, was trailing far behind him.

She found the Doctor stood on the cramped landing, leaning against the wall with the door to the side of him. It was as if he were putting off entering, as if he knew that this wasn't going to end well for him. He could see that Lizzie was paralysed with fear, as he joined her up there, and they faced the door together. So, he offered her a hand.

She took it, and in the brief seconds that they were holding each other, they both felt safe. As if whatever was to be found in that room could not scare either of them, as long as they were together. It was as if, after all this time, now that the universe had collapsed around them, this was all they had left. To go to the end, together.

The Doctor opened the door, and then his whole world fell apart.

Lizzie spoke before he entered. "I'm – I'm sorry, Doctor. I should've told you."

* * *

It was a bedroom, right up in the top left corner of the house, perhaps as far away from the heart of the building that you could get. There was a circular window, looking out over the garden and the and the light that streamed through the fur trees below. It did not reach through the porthole-like window, as somehow, via some strange mechanism, the room remained in darkness, apart from the lamp beside the bed, which bathed the bed's occupant in a warm, orange glow.

And the room was bittersweet, as the Doctor stepped further in. There was a bookshelf, crammed full of titles, all children's books, and the Doctor guessed that whoever lay in the bed was probably around the age of 7, or thereabouts. A small writing table stood up against the wall, upon which were some loose sheets of paper that had been scribed upon in the surprisingly neat hand of a young person. Dangling from the ceiling were stars, cut childishly out from white paper painted yellow, and a moon as well, a planetarium of dreams for the dreamer to run to in the night. The wardrobe had a few drawings blue-tacked to it, and other than the dressing gown, which hung upon the door like a shadow looming over the life of the occupant of the bed, the room was empty.

But it did not feel empty, because through all of those books, some of which scattered the floor, and through those drawings, and those stories bursting with childhood imagination, and those stars, the hallmark of a little girl who dreamed and hoped and loved, the room felt as if it were bursting with character.

The Doctor realised now. He understood why he thought Lizzie was lying to him, why Cioné and Iris hadn't been entirely straight with him either. Because the truth would hurt him more than anything else.

"Because nothing is more powerful than the bad dreams of a little girl…"

The little girl lay there in the bed, fast asleep, with her head buried into the pillow as if she were hiding from both the Doctor and Lizzie. It wasn't as if the girl needed any identification, either. As soon as the Doctor saw her face, she knew that this was the bedroom of Lizzie Darwin.

And her childhood self was asleep.

* * *

The Doctor quietly tiptoed through the bedroom, and kneeling quietly beside the bed of the young Lizzie, he took out his sonic screwdriver, and waved it over her as if it would somehow bring her back from the strange universe she now slept in.

"It makes sense," the Doctor spoke aloud, but quietly. He knew that the little Lizzie was not going to wake up, but he also instinctively spoke in a hushed voice. "You got me out my plugging yourself in. And that's why everything is tied to you – because the Memory Graveyard is powered by you. That's why the portal is in the pond in the forest, that's why the Masked Maiden, all that time ago, came for you."

Lizzie traced her way over the floor of her bedroom, and she did it instinctively, knowing exactly where everything was on the floor, and stepping over it deftly, as she had become accustomed to as a child. She took out the chair from beneath her writing table, and sat down on it, before finally deciding what to say. "When we were in the tower, and I... teleported you out, I plugged myself into the device. I knew I could... move, walk around, and just... do what I do normally; it's just a mental link. Doesn't really affect me at all, it's just... channeling what I think."

"But... why?" the Doctor questioned.

Briefly, Lizzie became distracted, after looking down at her copy of _The Good-Dream Girl_ \- her copy should also have been on her childhood bookshelves. A stickler for routine, she always kept it in the same place... but this time, it was gone. And Lizzie was quite certain that at the age of seven, she'd definitely had _The Good-Dream Girl_.

"It made sense. It's not just me as a kid, it's me. Every moment of my life, pouring through my head as we speak. I have depression, and… and I'd just had a really awful breakdown, and so I realised that I'd work well."

"Elizabeth, you stupid girl!" the Doctor stood up, anger flooding through his voice. "Why, _why_ are you so flippant with your health?"

"You're more important."

The words were simple, and yet they made the Doctor feel so guilty. She was a better person, a stronger person than he would ever be. And yet, Lizzie had resolutely decided that she were right; she steadfastly believed he could fix everything.

"How can you say that," he shook his head, and then suddenly, he realised that he was crying. Lizzie noticed as well, and there was something so terrifying about the tears of a Time Lord. "Lizzie, you had no right to go and do that, you matter, so much more than I do, in fact."

Lizzie shook her head, though half of her was looking at the scribblings of her childhood self. She didn't need to, she knew them all too well. She just didn't want to look at the Doctor.

"Lizzie, don't you see! This depression makes you stronger –"

It was then that Lizzie snapped. Of all the people in the universe, she had expected him to understand. And it turned out, that she was just going to be disappointed, because he was going to spout the same stupid rhetoric that everyone spouted, and she was sick of hearing it. When she felt awful, it just made her feel awful, and not bloody stronger like everyone else seemed to think.

"Oh for god's sake, not this stupid rhetoric, it doesn't make me stronger. It's an illness and all I can do is live with it. It's not some kind of superpower, so don't you dare try and turn it into that."

The Doctor looked away from her, a sheepish look on his face, and he apologised. "I should know better. I've been there."

He could remember it, when it had felt like he was the one with every bad dream that ever happened streaming through his head. When he'd sat lonely on a street corner, at the foot of his police box, and somebody had come to help him.

"Exactly. You've got a family who have helped you through it, it's easy for you to look back and say it makes you stronger."

The Doctor stood up, and walked slowly over to the other side of the bed, where he perched opposite Lizzie. The older Lizzie. The older Lizzie who knew that they were going to have to do something about this soon otherwise it was going to get confusing. "You are as much a part of that family as anyone else."

She knew she wasn't. The whole reason she'd ended up with this bedroom, on her own, far out of the way of anyone else, was because she cried herself to sleep at night, and _apparently,_ she disturbed the girl she used to share a room with, which was probably understandable but hadn't made the delivery of the news any better. Lizzie had been so, so lonely all of her life, and often she'd been fine with that, she had loved being on her own. No people to irritate her or make her upset or uncomfortable or anything like that. Bliss. Except sometimes, all she wanted in the universe was a friend. Someone she could talk to, somebody she could offload her problems to, somebody she could just scream at about how much she despised everything about her life. But she didn't have anybody like that, and it felt like everyone else did. All she needed was _help_.

And finally, she had realised that.

The Doctor took both of her hands in his. "Elizabeth, you are my friend, my _best_ friend."

Lizzie really didn't want him to go through the motions of talking about how much she meant to him, because she just didn't want to hear it. "Doctor, I understand –"

"Lizzie," he interrupted her, because he knew that she had to hear this. "You are – you are so important. You found me."

"No, don't be –"

Again, the Doctor thought back to that time, outside his TARDIS, when he'd felt all alone. And that person had come out to help him – that person, of course, being Lizzie.

"When I was most alone in all the world, you took me in, and you made me tea, and you let me talk. That will always mean more than words can express."

And since she took him in, and made him tea, his life had started again. He had found his family, and with her, he had travelled the universe, and it had made him realise why he wanted to live, when in the dark days of his life he had wanted the exact opposite.

The Doctor would never be able to thank Lizzie Darwin enough for that.

"Right," he stood up. "We're going to do this, we are going to bring back the whole universe, Lizzie, older Lizzie, of course," which was a stupid thing to clarify, because young Lizzie was still asleep. "We'll check on Cioné and Iris, see how they're getting on with the perimeter…"

Lizzie did not share the Doctor's optimism, as he bounded downstairs, with a newfound determination. However, she was quite certain that the Doctor didn't share his own outer optimism. There was something darker about him, something a little bit more brooding, as if he'd already given up.

"Cioné?" he called, at the bottom of the staircase.

There was no reply, and both of them knew why.

"Iris?!"

Again, no reply. The Doctor did a quick recce of the downstairs rooms in the house, all of which were in pitch darkness, barring the rooms facing the garden, which were still bathed in that unearthly white glow. His wife and daughter were nowhere to be seen, and Lizzie couldn't help but feel guilty that, as she were the one powering the big machine swallowing up the entire universe, she had been involved.

Right, she decided, resolutely. Guilt-face off, end-of-the-universe-saving-face on. Although by this point she was pretty certain they were the same thing.

She nearly started her next sentence with forgive my pessimism, before realising that would involve the Doctor forgiving everything she had said ever.

"Okay, how are we going to stop the universe from… dying? And how are we going to bring back Cioné and Iris?"

The Doctor hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, stood only a metre or so away from her. His face was melancholy, and he was trying to look hopeful – although she knew he wasn't.

"My line of thinking…," he began, heading up the stairs. "Is that we just… press undo. I mean, it's a big computer hard drive, to process delete, someone had to press delete in the first place. There'll be back-ups to restore, so – yes – yes, I think that'll do."

In his uncertainty, as he strode into little Lizzie's room, he began to fumble around the base of her bed, as if he were looking for… something. His desperation was notable, however, as his handiwork was inelegantly done, his mind occupied by thoughts of his wife and daughter. To try and stop Lizzie from worrying, he tried to look in control – he always tried to look in control, _always_ hoping that it would give those who needed it the hope they required.

"Lizzie, don't come near me," he pointed at the corner of the room, as if she were the same age as herself in the bed. She hesitated, but listened to him. As the Doctor poked his head beneath the wooden frame of the bed, he allowed himself to sigh, aware that Lizzie wouldn't be able to see it. He knew that if he mucked this up, it would probably trigger a power vacuum through which there would be an energy surge which would be the cause of the big bang…

The _last_ big bang.

Lizzie watched the sight, terrifying in its absurdity, of the Doctor wedged beneath a bed. "What are you doing?" she asked him.

"Putting me back in there – "

"No," she ran over to him, and tried to grab onto his coat and desperately pull him back. The Doctor emerged from underneath and she clawed onto him, yanking him as far away as he could. "No, you can't, please –"

The Doctor shook himself away. "Get off me!" He was going to do it, whether she liked it or not.

"Lizzie – okay, I don't know how this is going to work." And he was being honest. The Doctor had no idea – but his plan was all they had. "But when the back-up, _if_ there's a back-up, has been restored, all we can do is pull the plug. End it all, stop the Memory Graveyard from killing everyone and everything. It'll kill the person powering it – and I won't let you do that."

"The universe needs you." Lizzie thought of all those people she had seen him save, of all those civilisations the Doctor had brought hope to. Sometimes... the Doctor caused bad things. Lizzie knew that for sure, she had seen it first hand - but the life of the man they would be ending, would be the life of a man who had brought hope and happiness to so many. One could find solutions for problems - but when one destroyed the solution before, it was much harder to find another. The universe needed the Doctor. She had no idea what it would do without him.

"No. The universe doesn't need me." Time had hurt the Doctor, and whenever he did anything, all he could see was the impact it left behind. "When I'm gone, and the universe is back, you can get the help you deserve. Let that be my legacy, hey?"

The Doctor took Lizzie's hand once more.

"Cioné and Iris need you," was all Lizzie could say. She'd seen that little girl grow up, and she needed her father. She'd seen them fall apart, she'd seen them brought back together again. Lizzie couldn't bear to see it fall apart forever.

Also, she couldn't bring herself to tell the truth.

"I couldn't be a dad until you helped me," the Doctor shrugged. And it was true, for he had had his doubts – not just doubts, in fact, but massive insecurities that he would have never gotten past without Lizzie. "And when you did, I faced up to my responsibilities, I promised I would protect them both, and I will. I _will_."

And as the Doctor proclaimed his pledge to protect them, even though they both knew that really, it was Cioné and Iris who would protect him, he held up his hand, and saw that it was dissolving in front of his eyes.

It was bathed in the white light that had streamed through the windows, and it was like fireflies, all whizzing around and burning so bright it illuminated him a gleaming white. As the Doctor looked at his hands, as the other was now succumbing to the same fate, it reminded him of his regenerations. Except this time, he knew that there would be no life at the end of the universe. The white light was slowly crawling up his arms, and he estimated that the two of them had two minutes, perhaps.

Or at least, he did.

Because as he was going to have to tell Lizzie Darwin, she was about to be alone.

"Doctor? Is this it, have you done it?"

The Doctor scanned over his blazing hands. "No – no, I – it's the Memory Graveyard, the end of the universe, Lizzie, it's caught up with me."

The Doctor watched helplessly at the look of realisation as it pooled Lizzie's face, and she understood the face that was awaiting her. She couldn't believe it – except, she could.

Because that's how it always ended for her. Alone.

She confessed.

" _I_ need you."

The Doctor gave her a sad smile – like the one he'd given her all that time ago when they'd first met.

"Oh, Elizabeth Darwin. It's me who needs you."

Lizzie put a hand to her face, and wiped the tear that had fallen. She realised that she wasn't crying at being the last one in the universe. She didn't care that the whole responsibility of saving everyone was going to fall to her. She was crying because she was about to lose the Doctor. That after everything they had been through, it would come to this. Lizzie had never thought that she would be the one to outlast him.

"It was never gonna work," she snivelled. "I'm messed up, and you're a fairytale."

The Doctor look his head. If Lizzie were to remember anything he had ever said to her, he hoped that it would be this.

"You're not messed up, Lizzie. Please, _never_ think that of yourself. You are… the most amazing young woman, and it has been a pleasure. At the end of it – I'm sorry I couldn't be the Doctor for you."

It hadn't been all bad. Although it had not been a good time for her, since the Doctor dropped out of the sky, Lizzie Darwin had come back. It had felt like, for the first time in her long life, she had breathed, and she had felt the air of the universe gush through her lungs, and Lizzie had felt her bones move again, as she began to walk through everything in all of time and space. She had sung, and danced, and cried, and laughed. It may have taken her so long to realise, but finally, she understood that being with the Doctor had brought her back to life.

And she had loved her life.

She couldn't bear to say goodbye to that.

"And I never asked that from you. But you know what? You showed me the universe. You became my friend. And that's more than I could have ever asked for."

Oh – and he had been her friend. All her life it had been as if nobody had ever understood her. There were some who wanted to help, but finally, she had found a friend. Someone who she didn't want to say goodbye to, somebody who she would miss – somebody whose company she desired. It was new for her.

The light engulfed half of the Doctor's upper body, and he was crying too, although the universe evaporated his tears as it swallowed him up. He took Lizzie's hand, and he lifted it to his face, and the Doctor kissed it.

"And this is how it always ends for me," Lizzie joked. "Alone." Although she wasn't really joking.

"Lizzie – you're never alone. Not really."

The light reached further up him now, and he was starting to vanish properly, just as Cioné and Iris had also gone. Lizzie thought of the three of them, and how they had brought her home. Lizzie thought of all the others she had met, Pat, Cleo, Nephthys, Jada, Elle, Jarvis, Ronnie, Kido, Carson. Cioné and Iris. And above all, Lizzie thought of Maggie. The woman who had been there for her, all of her life, even when she hadn't realised it.

"I wouldn't have missed it, you know," Lizzie smiled. "I wouldn't have missed it for the end of the universe."

"Mmhm," the Doctor said. "The universe might not always be kind – but perhaps we can make it so."

A few seconds of silence passed between the two of them, and now the Doctor was just a ghost.

"Goodbye, Doctor."

"Goodbye, Elizabeth."

She let go of his hand. Except she wasn't sure if she did – perhaps his hand just disappeared around hers.

There was silence in that room at the top of the house.

It was not a new silence. Lizzie had always known there to be silence in that room, all through her life, in the deepest, darkest parts of the night, when there was nobody for her. And even in the brightest parts of day, when there had been so much life, screaming and shouting below her, the room had been silent as well. Even when she could hear things, it felt silent.

Lizzie's whole life had been silent.

And now the whole universe was.

"A fitting end," she murmured. Her voice was weird, now she was all alone. She didn't have a use for it anymore.

And Lizzie was correct. At the end of everything, she was alone, in the silence. Her life, perfectly summarised, laid out in front of her. Plagued by trust issues all of her life, locked up inside herself and refusing to talk to anyone anything. "You're always very enigmatic, Lizzie," is what people would always say to her, but she didn't care. Nobody knew anything about her, really, she just passed under everyone's radars, keeping all of her cards as close to her chest as she possibly could – determined to be _her_ , and not defined by her _life_. So it did feel fitting that when she was the only person left in the universe, the only person with her, was herself.

Someone she could be open with. Someone who would understand her, when she said that it wasn't just the universe that had kicked her, and punched her, and verbally beaten her, until she was blue and bleeding, and until she was so numb from the constant, relentless, never-ending pain, that she had finally learned to take it. And everything that she had faced, she had charged herself for it, and found herself guilty. When she ever did do something wrong, she would abuse herself over it, until she couldn't torture herself over it anymore. And when Lizzie Darwin became old enough to understand, nothing would delight her more than the blade, and then nothing would make her feel sicker and more disgusting than the oncoming guilt that choked her and drowned her. No thought tantalised her more than the way out, the thought that she may find an escape from this constant hell, to find an escape from the bad dreams that had infected her soul, that plagued her, day in and day out.

Until now, she had thought that it was only herself who would understand this, but perhaps she had been wrong. Now she was faced with herself at the end of the universe, Lizzie finally realised that she'd been wrong, all of her life.

Now it was time for her to do something about it.

It wasn't as if this were some great moment of realisation. It wasn't as if she could just pull up her socks and decide to face the world and fix herself. It was just sheer, unbridled grit, a blood-filled passionate _need_ to pull herself, and the universe, back.

And Lizzie had realised what she needed to do.

There were a few options, as the Doctor had suggested. But the Doctor hadn't always been right. She could cut the power, cut the memory graveyard, the back-ups would restore, the universe would save. Let herself die, at long bloody last.

But it wouldn't help anyone.

So there was only one option.

It was time for Lizzie Darwin to tell herself a story.

"Right," she sighed, not really sure where to start, because although she could write stories down, speaking them was just incoherent. It was just her luck that the fate of everyone who had ever and ever would live was determined on her being able to speak. Lizzie pulled the lone chair away from the writing table, and placed it down beside her bed.

She took the seat, ready to begin her tale.

"So, turns out I'm gonna end this already quite narcissistic shitshow by being the last person left in the whole universe and talking to myself. Lovely. Yep. Brilliant."

Lizzie had her book, sat on her lap. _The Good-Dream Girl_. It was her favourite book. Finally, it was to become her inspiration.

Lizzie had no idea that this was actually going to work. It was all just based on conjecture – logically, the Memory Graveyard was powered by bad dreams and memories streaming through the head of its power source - AKA, herself. So… Lizzie just needed to change the bad dreams that were busy engulfing the universe. Replace them with something else, and then the Memory Graveyard would start making good dreams. And maybe, those good dreams would be able to bring back the universe.

Yeah. It sounded stupid when put like that, but it was all she had. And when she did, perhaps she could accept her life. And then _she_ could get help.

"The Good-Dream Girl," Lizzie spoke aloud. "Once upon a time, there was a girl called Elizabeth Darwin. She sat on a chair, that was probably a bit too big for a six-year-old, since her feet couldn't touch the ground, and were left dangling in the air…"

And Lizzie told her story. She forced every single day out of her, every day she hated the thought of living and every day she despised herself. She told of the people who had despised her too, and she told of how she was almost certain that the universe was in cahoots with them. All of those moments of being completely alone in the world, every relationship around her shattered, and the glass so sharp it should slice into her soul. Lizzie spoke of every tear, and every drop of blood, and the vitriolic guilt, and every second of fearing the dark, and every night when she lay awake, the starvation of sleep making her ache to the very core. Lizzie spoke of it all passionately, and she made the universe know that all of those tears and all of that blood had come to form the woman sat beside that bed.

"But that," she took a deep, shaky, breath, wiping the tears away from her eyes. "It's not everything."

Although nearly all the time it felt like it _was_ everything, Lizzie forced herself to look past it. She told little Lizzie of those times she'd sat on the bench overlooking the sunset at Dunsworth, with life held perfectly in balance, and a rare, blissful moment of contentment upon her. As Lizzie looked out of that iconic circular window, she thought of the dark, and told Lizzie how, although she was terrified of what demons lurked in the shadows, there was something magical about the night as well – a stillness with the world that she craved more than anything else, and that often, it was that stillness that piqued euphoria, and she wanted to dance under the night and the stars.

And of course, she told little Lizzie about Maggie, who, even when she didn't understand, would always listen, and would always accept. Maggie, who would always be there for the little girl sleeping in that bed, who would always take her in, and make her tea, even when it wasn't convenient – _especially_ when it wasn't convenient.

"And then came the Doctor."

Her life had transformed forever, from that moment. She had sat on the swings, at the top of a hill, the last frontier between the Earth and the Universe, as the sun had set on her old life. And she had truly grasped the impossible scale of the universe, and how, in all the millions and billions and trillions of random probabilities and occurrences that could have happened, she had been born.

Then she spoke of how she and the Doctor had walked upon stars. How they had travelled to long-forgotten lands, and helped long-forgotten people. How they had met Cleopatra, and gave her hope that her life would be remembered as it was lived. Lizzie told herself how she had met a girl, very similar to herself, who was very lonely, and who had lost her mother. Lizzie thought of when she met her sister – a sister she never thought she had, and how they had built a bond so unbreakable, an eternal love. And then she moved onto how she had finally danced, in a spaceship so far from home, the stars above her head, and the happiness that it had brought her. Of course, it would be impossible to forget the time she shared her breath with the TARDIS, and the time she'd sat at the top of an old house, and just talked about nothing to her best friend in the universe.

And even when times grew dark for her, Maggie, the closest person she had to a mother, had journeyed across the universe to find her. And that even when they had been the last two people left in existence, her best friend had helped her, and she had helped him. Human relationships, strained to their furthest limits – but displayed at the true optimum of their beauty.

Lizzie realised, at that moment, how rare and beautiful it was, to walk upon the universe.

How lucky she was to even be alive.

And suddenly, Lizzie looked up, and the most magical thing was happening.

There was a golden light streaming from the bed, wispy, arm-like beams waving around the room, dancing above her head – or heads, for she still wasn't over the absurdity of the situation. Except now, she laughed because of it, as in that moment, Lizzie felt happy. She wiped her eyes once more, and watched as those golden stories trailed off into the never-ending night, and when Lizzie ran over to that circular window she had watched, alone, out of for most of her life, she saw those stories dance across the boundaries of the universe. They spread to the highest reaches of the sky, and soon it became tinged in that light.

The ultimate story of hope to a broken life flooded across all the universe.

And as those stories had been spoken, she saw something that Lizzie wasn't even sure would ever come to be.

The white light from behind the fur trees began to dissolve, and roll back, and as it rolled back, the world unrolled with it, resurrected by all those impossible tales she had told. And she expected, as she saw how it retreated back, the night sky became rich with stars. When the sky became full of stars again, it was the moment that Lizzie knew it wasn't just the world reaching out around her, but the entire universe coming back to life.

She was the good-dream girl now, and with her stories, Lizzie had brought back everything, and everyone.

Suddenly, Lizzie felt something inside her break – as if she had a connection with something, and the cord had snapped. Of course, she couldn't be certain, but Lizzie was almost certain that it was the Memory Graveyard breaking away from her. In the end, the Memory Graveyard would not be where all the bad dreams were stored – but in fact, where all the good dreams lived.

A strange glowing portal began to extend from those golden beams of light, just ahead of the bed, and Lizzie knew that it was where she would go next.

It would take her back home.

But before Lizzie left, she looked at herself, and realised that she was still fast asleep. _Clearly the insomnia hadn't sunk in yet_ , she joked to herself.

"Hey, kid," she whispered to her sleeping younger self. "I feel like, cause everything is back to normal, that I should probably give you some advice. Cause that's what you're meant to do, I think, when you meet your past self…"

Lizzie hesitated, as it dawned on her that she actually wasn't sure what to say.

"I can't lie to you," which she was certain of, because she had always been a rubbish liar. "It's not gonna be great. Life is awful and we all learn that the hard way. But… be hopeful. I'm still borderline hating myself now as we sit here, in two minutes I'll end up stepping through that portal, going through months of therapy and dosing myself up on antidepressants."

Lizzie realised that she wasn't making any sense. She never really did, though, and she was just relieved that this time round, the whole universe didn't depend upon her speaking skills.

"What I'm trying to say," she concluded. "Is that there's no magical cure for any of this, there never will be. But remember there's good things too. Beautiful things. And above all – don't be scared."

Yeah. That was pretty good advice.

"In the wake of what you're gonna see, it seems like a pretty good idea to just, be terrified of the future. But it isn't, okay? It's not."

It was hard, giving herself advice. Because it wasn't going to be easy – all she could manage was to tell herself that when it was okay, to take those times and treasure them.

"We're… pretty lucky to even exist, so when everything is hell around you, try and hold onto that. I don't think you'll remember this, and even if you do, I don't think it will make any difference. Because it'll hurt, and you'll hate it, so yeah, sorry. Typical me… awkward ending."

And then Lizzie remembered. She'd never known when she'd received that copy of her favourite book. And... right now, it was nowhere to be seen.

"Guess you'll be needing this too," she lay her copy of _The Good-Dream Girl_ , the one she'd been clutching ever since she stepped out the TARDIS, gently on the bedside table. "It'll help you. It really will."

Lizzie stood up from her seat beside the bed, and leaned over to her younger self.

"Stay strong, hey? Even when you don't want to."

She kissed herself on the forehead, and then slowly stepped away from the bed, switching off the lamp as she went, leaving the room in darkness but for the golden portal. She walked tentatively towards it.

"And to be honest, if you remember any of this, my awkwardness is gonna work wonders for your self-confidence."

Lizzie gave herself one, final smile, and stepped into the golden portal, on her way home.

It wrapped itself up shut behind her, and then the room was completely in darkness. Seconds of silence passed.

And then little Lizzie stirred from her sleep, and she looked up at her bedroom around her. All good. She smiled, and then she went back to sleep.

It wouldn't always be good for her. But for now, she was okay.

* * *

 **A Week Later**

It was a funny rain outside. It was a true late-afternoon storm, lashing down, thrashing against the ground below, filling up puddles on the curb-side, and creating reservoirs on the top of the mud-brown bins outside. It drummed on drain-tops and car windscreens, and dampened the roof tiles of the houses opposite. Except, at the same time, on the roof she could only hear a gentle patter, and the windows were perfectly dry. Perhaps the wind was just blowing in a different direction. The sky was a slate grey, but the evening sun was cracking through, poking bittersweet beams of a yellowish white through the grimness.

Lizzie found it deeply satisfying, watching the raindrops fire into the lakes on the ground, sending tiny, instantaneous ripples spattering, there and gone in the blink of an eye, like a crude, stop-motion animation. She'd been stood for at least half an hour watching the scene, observing the couple dashing past with a floral umbrella, and the silver Peugeot cruise in an effortless attempt at parallel parking opposite, the occupant launching themselves from the car into their house at an impossibly quick, 'I don't have a raincoat' kind of speed.

"You alright, love?" Maggie was stood behind her. Lizzie had noticed her ages ago, reflected in the glass.

Lizzie didn't say anything.

Since she had arrived back here, she hadn't said very much. Stepping through that golden portal in the bedroom of her childhood-self had taken her back to Maggie's house. And rightly so – for it was a place that she had felt at home. Since all of it, Maggie had taken her to see a doctor, and she had, as expected, been prescribed medication. Now she was on a waiting list for counselling, but it was going to be a while. Maggie had been the best through all of it, and she was so thankful for everything she had done.

Except, Lizzie couldn't rest easy. Because she wasn't sure where the Doctor was. Her best friend, someone who could understand her, and he'd gone. She'd not seen him since he vanished, and she was so concerned for him.

Maggie stepped further into the small living room, gently brushing past the chest of drawers, with the wooden and glass cupboards on top, full of family photos and keepsakes and all sorts of tat that she didn't really need to keep but felt obliged to anyway. There was a small framed photo, of Lizzie, on the day of her graduation, in a wrought metal frame, sat amongst the mementos.

"Lizzie – I'm almost certain, you know, that he's alright. And when he inevitably comes back, because of this stupid delay I'm going to rip his boll –"

Lizzie couldn't help but laugh, and it was probably the first time she'd laughed in a while.

"– and I'll make them into bloody earrings."

Lizzie shrugged. "I don't really know how it's all going to work. The universe ended and he was taken by it and then I brought the universe back with stories of him. So it's logical he should come back too."

Maggie stopped and held onto the drawers for support, caught in a complete wave of confusion as to what she should say next. Partly because she didn't actually have a clue what she was going on about.

"What right have I got to be upset about this? To be upset about everything?" Lizzie turned away from the windowsill, and slumped down on the sofa. It wasn't even a proper fed-up slump. She buried her face in her hands, like a child playing peekaboo, as if somehow, she thought it could hide her forever. "We're all alive, that's a start."

"Oh, but my darling," Maggie said to her. "You have every right."

Lizzie looked up through the crack in her hands.

"I wish you'd talk about how you're feeling more, but – just because some morons will say 'you're hurt in a different way to anyone else you are therefore less valued' – they are so wrong. You're hurt, bad things have happened, and of course it's scarred you. Badly. And that's what matters, more than anything else. There are idiots in this world who will deny it, but as I say, they're idiots and their opinion counts for nothing."

She took her hands away from her face, and Maggie came over and sat beside her. She ran an old hand through Lizzie's hair, smothering down the tufts that had been stuck up, as if Lizzie were still a child. Everyone needed someone like that in their lives – someone who knew them better than anyone else.

"Thank you for everything," Lizzie told her.

Maggie shook her head dismissively. "You don't need to –"

"I do. I'm… useless as telling people things."

"Oh, love… you're my daughter. Or at least, you might as well be. There's no thanks needed."

Maggie hugged her, and Lizzie buried her face into Maggie's old shoulders, where she felt safe. The world wasn't a safe place, but at least, for a few seconds, she felt it.

"The Doctor will be back," Maggie pointed over to the far corner of the living room. "Because also, I packed your stuff."

Lizzie laughed at how well Maggie knew her. "You should come with us."

Then it was Maggie's turn to laugh at the sheer weirdness of Lizzie's suggestion. One trip to that peculiar space-station had been quite enough for her. It wasn't as if she were too… freaked out, by space. No, it had been quite a laugh. But Maggie Shepherd had people who needed her on Earth. Mikey. The kids she worked with.

And Lizzie, whenever she came home.

Maggie, at that moment, stood up, and proclaimed what obviously had to be proclaimed, for this was an encounter that had gone on far too long without this trope of their relationship being milked for all it was worth.

"Time for a cuppa, I think…"

But her voice trailed off at the end, as she caught sight of something out on the street corner.

Underneath the streetlamp, prematurely shining due to the nature of the weather, there was a familiar sight. Last time she'd seen it… well, the last time she'd seen it, it had destroyed her patio.

"Lizzie. I think you'd better see this."

Both Lizzie and Maggie stood beside the window, and saw, underneath the falling rain and in the orange light of the streetlamp, there was a funny little blue box.

The bigger-on-the-inside box.

And suddenly, the doors opened, and a man stepped outside, an umbrella popping up above his head. He leaned on the door, and gave Lizzie a wave. He was clean shaven, and his boots were polished, and his trousers ironed. His shirt was clean, and tucked into said trousers, and a well-tied cravat was beneath his collar. A fitted jacket hung well over his shoulders, and for once, the Doctor looked presentable.

Maggie spoke with a mocking smugness. "I said he'd be back."

Lizzie made her way over to the corner of the room, and picked up the lone suitcase. It was battered now – the suitcase of a well-versed traveller. Lizzie lugged it through to the front door, depositing it down at the foot of the stairs. Maggie hobbled in after her. A yellow mackintosh hung upon the pegs, and Lizzie took it, and slipped it over her shoulders, zipping it up.

Maggie leaned in, and kissed her. She would miss Lizzie dearly, as much as she missed her own children when they weren't around. But she was quite certain that it made Lizzie happy – and that was what mattered.

"I'll get in touch when I get a referral for your first counselling appointment, yes?"

Lizzie nodded. "Thank you."

"As I said," Maggie put on a brave face. "No thanks needed."

The front door was opened, and Lizzie took a look at the woman who had helped her, so much, throughout all of her life.  
Then she turned, and through the pouring rain, she dashed to the TARDIS, so that she was under the cover of the Doctor's umbrella. It may have been the first signs of an autumn chill, and the autumnal weather, but Maggie was still stood there in the doorway, waving her off as Lizzie Darwin left to see the universe.

Lizzie raised her hand, and said aloud,

"Goodbye."

The Doctor passed Lizzie his umbrella, and turned into the TARDIS, while Lizzie watched as Maggie shut her front door behind her.

As she was about to take one, final, melancholy look at Dunsworth, she saw a woman walking towards her from the end of the road. She was like a monochrome photograph, dressed in a sleek, perfect black business suit above a crisp, snow-white shirt, and her skin so pale - except she possessed a distinct, ruby-red umbrella, protecting her from the deluge. As she approached, Lizzie saw her ruby-red lips twist into a wry smile, which in turn twisted the faint outline of the scar on the left side of her face.

"Elizabeth Darwin?"

Lizzie stared at the mysterious woman, at a loss as to how she could know her name. After all, Lizzie was certain that she had never set eyes upon her before. "... yeah?"

The woman handed over a card - plain white, and framed with an ornate, black-ink border - but with a simple phone number printed on it. Lizzie, not knowing whether to take the card, obviously took the card to avoid the awkwardness of a social encounter.

"For when you want to take action against Evangeline Cullengate," the woman acknowledged.

With that, the woman turned and walked away.

"How do you know… how do you know about that?" Lizzie called after her.

The woman turned. "We'll be seeing each other again, I think."

The woman walked away into the rain, and vanished into the fog. Lizzie decided to pocket the card, although she had no idea whether she would phone the number. Except… perhaps she _did_ know.

Lizzie closed the TARDIS doors behind her.

* * *

When the doors slammed shut behind them, the Doctor bounded over to the controls. Cioné was already moving around the console, still in awe at what a shambolic state the Doctor's TARDIS was in. Iris, meanwhile, was sat on the leather seating, watching a video of a man falling head over heels after someone switched off his bedroom's antigravs. In the midst of her hysterical laughing, Iris caught sight of Lizzie as she walked further into the TARDIS, and she threw herself off the seat, and dashed over into Lizzie's arms. Lizzie hugged her back, and in those moments, the two sisters were together, and they were happy.

"Oh my god, are you alright Liz?" she demanded, taking Lizzie slightly by surprise.

"Yeah. Well. Hopefully I'm gonna be."

Iris held her for a bit longer, determined to not let go, until eventually, they separated. "I'm so glad you're back."

"I'm so glad to be here," Lizzie laughed, and she walked further into the TARDIS, where Cioné left the controls.

"Darling, thank god you're here, hubbie's driving me insane and you're one of the few people who can stop me going mad." She gave Lizzie a hug, and kissed her on the cheek, and then panicked wondering if it was too touchy-feely. "Be strong, hmm?"

"Yeah," Lizzie agreed, before Cioné then turned away on her hideous neon orange trainers to the controls.

"All of time and space," the Doctor joined his wife, and then Lizzie and Iris joined them both too, so all four of them were surrounding the console that controlled the gateway to everything that had ever happened, or ever would happen, or never could happen. The four of them looked at each other, and smiled, for this was how it was to be. "And _things_. Evangeline Cullengate, still looming large. And we'll get her."

 _And the woman_ , Lizzie thought.

"But, after all," the Doctor grinned. "This _is_ a time machine."

And it would be a terrible shame not to have some fun.

"Whacked on the randomiser," Cioné informed them. "Ooh. Whacked it on. Lovely turn of phrase."

"But only after you repaired the databank stacks," the Doctor saw it fit to remind her. "After _someone_ tripped over," he turned to Iris. "And ripped out _all 377_ physonomic sparkplugs."

"You shouldn't have left the lights off…," Iris grumbled.

"Elizabeth," the Doctor told her. "You do the honours, please."

Lizzie took the dematerialisation lever, and she pulled it.

The TARDIS took a deep breath, and the four of them joined it, and now they were ready to greet the universe with open arms.

 **EPILOGUE**

It was late at night – if there was such a thing as night in the TARDIS. No… there were only simulated days, no true structure as to when one should sleep, and when one should wake. Life in the TARDIS had muddled on in that chaotic format, with sleep being grabbed in between their mad adventures.

For Lizzie Darwin, every day was simulated, whether she was back on Earth, or in the TARDIS. Living with insomnia, any concept of a structured 'night' was completely out of the window. Because of that, when the Doctor, Cioné and Iris retired to bed, Lizzie would often take to wandering the TARDIS. It was a truly brilliant place to be, as an insomnia sufferer, as there was so much to do in the thick of the night. Sometimes she would take herself off to the library and tuck into a book. Perhaps she would go to the cinema, and enjoy a film. Sometimes she just liked to be quiet and contemplate everything.

That specific night, she had taken herself off to the console room. It was dark, and Lizzie flicked on the lamp beside the bookshelves (now reconstructed following the crashed TARDIS at the end of the universe), bathing a corner of the chamber in a warm, orange glow. She slouched down in front of the bookshelf, so she was sat, her arms wrapped around her legs, looking up at the observatory.

Her heart grew heavy, as through the glass, she could see a supernova, fierce in space, a great crimson ball of heat in the middle, surrounded by thick rings of black, inky dust. It was dying, and soon it would finally be engulfed. Lizzie watched it, a powerful emotional punch to the stomach, as she knew it would fade out of existence.

But then, as the TARDIS continued turning through space, Lizzie realised. It was beautiful up there. She could see now, a star was being born, and pink and purple dust, and great silver clouds, were converging, with gravity as some impossible force of attraction between all the elements. The dusts mingled in the darkness, and soon it would be roaring, with great fires igniting, and that heat would bond the dusts forever together into one.

Of course, it wasn't the stars that had made her so emotional. It was the fact she was there, when many people weren't. That... she was so infinitely tiny, and of all the billions of billions of probabilities of everything that had ever happened... Lizzie was there. She was watching the birth of a star, an event that nobody else would see, and that in all the wide universe, she was lucky enough to be there at that exact moment.

"Can't sleep?"

Lizzie turned, and the Doctor was leaning in the doorway. She laughed quietly. Way to make fun of an insomniac. Hilarious.

The Doctor made his way over, and sat down beside her. They were together, looking up at space.

"Seriously. Are you alright?"

Lizzie sighed. No, she wasn't. Some days, she just hurt. And she wasn't even sure why. Probably just… scars inflaming, bringing a darkness inside her to life she hated.

"No," she admitted, and she let her head rest on his shoulder.

"I understand."

And with those words, she knew that she didn't need to say anything more. Because he wouldn't say anything more either – he would help her, whenever she needed help, but he would not let it define her either. Lizzie had accepted it, and Lizzie was getting help. But Lizzie also wanted to be Lizzie. She didn't want to be the bad-dream girl.

She knew the Doctor understood that, as they sat together, looking up.

The stars shone brightly.


	16. Prelude - I Giorni

"You called _what_ number?"

Explaining this to Iris was going to be, admittedly, a confusing situation. She had not mentioned the strange woman, with the wry smile, and the icy eyes, to anyone. The picture of monochrome who had strode through the rain and into existence, with her ruby-red umbrella and lipstick, and who had handed Lizzie a business card with a phone number – until then, she had remained solely in Lizzie's memories. However, that was going to change.

The two of them were in the Doctor's TARDIS, alone. Iris had said that she was using it to prepare for her driving test, and so had dropped her mum and dad off for a nice meal. However, it was probably not the best idea to allow a learner driver loose at the wheel of a TARDIS, and the Doctor and Cioné had only realised the irresponsibility of their actions when the first course had arrived. Iris assumed that was business as usual when you had an adrenaline junky for a father and a mother who blundered through life being scatty 100% of the time.

"When the universe ended," Lizzie casually explained. "And I was with Maggie, and you came to pick me up – I waited like, five seconds to wave Maggie off – and then this woman came up to me, and gave me a card with a number on, for when I wanted to know more about dealing with Evangeline."

Iris nodded understandingly, although she seemed to have very little idea as to who the mysterious woman had been. She was also not surprised Lizzie had decided to phone the number – she had witnessed, first hand, the consequences of what Evangeline had put Lizzie through, and so Iris knew how much this meant to her. Whether it was the right decision, who knew. But there was no harm in trying, and Iris would be with her.

"Where are we going?"

Lizzie did not need to consult the note she had left for herself – it was a place name that had stuck firmly in her mind. "Palem Blue. The Mansion."

"Oh yeah," Iris observed, almost certain she'd heard of it. And so, she fumbled her way around the controls, trying to figure out how it all worked. She did sort of know, but when Dad had been explaining it to her, she'd been distracted by something more interesting. Eventually, she found a screen and pushed some buttons and typed in some coordinates, and then pulled down that big lever

"Do you know what you're doing?" Lizzie asked her.

"Nope," Iris shrugged.

"Right…."

That was reassuring. They both hoped that if TARDIS' were flown wrong, they didn't… punch holes in the space-time continuum, or something. However – they seemed to be flying, at least. And it was a bumpy ride, the sort Iris' father decided to preside over, and so both of them had to grab onto the console to stay upright. A minute or so passed, before the TARDIS ground to a halt.

It was silent, then – until Lizzie took a deep, shaky breath. Now was the moment – time to find out more about Evangeline Cullengate. A woman who she barely knew, and yet someone who had managed to impact her life in so many ways. Outside of the doors someone waited for her, who knew who she was – and yet, Lizzie had never met her before in her life. Lizzie hesitated, deciding that this wasn't going to be something she could prepare for. She would just have to go for it.

Lizzie nearly jumped when she felt Iris' hand on hers, which she hadn't realised was gripping the console so tightly. "You sure about this?"

Lizzie thought about it – something potentially dangerous that the Doctor didn't know about, regarding grim memories she'd tried very hard to forget. "Nope."

"I'll be with you, yeah? Not just now, but always."

"Yeah…" The way Lizzie said it made her sound vacant and distant, which she wasn't. In fact, Iris' words meant a great deal – to know that she would be there beside her. And she knew Iris held their relationship in especially high regard. Family was important to Iris.

Lizzie took a deep breath, and walked over to the doors of the TARDIS.

Gently, she pushed them open.

The Mansion, on the planet Palem Blue, was rather beautiful. A long, gravel driveway led up to the grand house in front of them, a hodgepodge of all architectural designs – towers, turrets, chimneys. Windows of steel and stained-glass, walls of brick, walls of stone, all bundled together to create an almost hybrid-castle.

There was an eerie wind in the air – the sort that comes from a completely flat plane, stretching on for as far as the eyes can see, with no hills or undulations at all. As Lizzie stepped out, she felt vulnerable, and alone. There was nothing to hide behind – to all sides of her, there was an extensive nothingness, perhaps going on for infinity, the chalky whiteness of the horizon merging with the flaring orange of the sunset. The never-ending fields were, however, occupied.

With flowers.

Fields and fields and fields of flowers, going on and on forever. Crimsons, turquoises, azures, maroons, indigos, gold, silver, sunny yellow and snowy white, a mix of wild and planted flowers, bringing a peculiar life to what felt like a dead landscape – for there was a strange absence of any activity on that strange world. The Mansion, in its fields of flowers, was completely alone, and there were no signs of life at all.

No noise. Just the silence.

"Oooh."

Iris was already halfway down the driveway when Lizzie took her eyes off the setting sun, striding towards the big house with burning curiosity in her stride.

"Hold on a sec," Lizzie awkwardly jogged after her.

"This planet is beautiful," Iris spun on her heels, gazing at the blanket of stars slowly peeping from the sunset, as a dusky evening crept over the looming house.

"And also potentially a bit dangerous," Lizzie caught up with her.

"I love new worlds," Iris murmured, as she held out her hand, and a butterfly fluttered down from nowhere and perched on top of it. Iris watched it with a look – a look highlighting a love of all things living, and an awe and wonder, of someone who truly loved the universe. Lizzie wished she could give it the same look – but the house was a bit too imposing, and the sky a little bit too grey.

"Come on," Lizzie urged her forwards, desperate to just… get in the house and confront whatever it was she was preparing to confront. "I want to get this out the way."

The butterfly fluttered away, and then that chilling state of lifelessness returned. So, Lizzie and Iris made their way down the driveway, the impending house growing ever closer.

* * *

When they arrived, Iris pushed the doors open with astounding confidence. Or at least, with as much confidence as the doors could bear, as they were too great and too heavy to swing open with a self-assured clatter. Instead, they shuddered forward slightly, and Iris sighed at the anti-climax, before ploughing into them.

"Yo!" she declared, striding into the main hallway of the Mansion. Lizzie anxiously followed behind her, her eyes scanning as she entered, picking up on every little detail. The floor was chequered, crafted from black and white tiles, and far above their heads was a great arched ceiling, an exquisitely crafted chandelier hanging down above their heads. It was not in use – the sole light in the room came from the crackling flames in the ornate fireplace – a great frame of marble, merging into the chimneybreast, upon which hung a painting. It displayed a silhouetted figure, crouched in a white landscape, alone but for a series of red tendrils crawling across the floor. It was peculiar – unlike anything Lizzie had seen before.

The warm light from the fire was just out of reach of the figure sat beside it in the armchair. She was slim, her legs crossed, her hand propped up on the arm, fingers twisting and curling. Briefly the light danced over her hands, revealing blood-red nail varnish on perfectly-done nails. The woman seemed small in the hallway of the Mansion – but it was a huge hallway, with a gigantic staircase forming a runway to the upper echelons of the house. There were several doors leading off to other parts of the Mansion, and other than the woman's armchair, the only furnishings was another armchair opposite, and a glass coffee table in front of the fireplace, a stark edition in contrast to the antiquity of the interior.

And there was a piano.

A great grand piano, sat beside one of the towering windows, looking out over the miles and miles of flowers.

The woman rotated in her armchair, revealing her face to Lizzie – as she did so, the woman seemed to grow in stature, belittling the house surrounding her. And yet, the woman hadn't changed.

The first words she spoke were quick, cold, and to the point – but they were not what Lizzie had been expecting.

"You play?"

The woman gestured to the piano.

"Yes," Lizzie replied, just as curtly.

"Good. Play something."

Iris nearly spoke, but she didn't dare, as she caught sight of the woman's eyes staring at her. There was something about her… some unearthly presence, as she sat there, just outside the firelight. She was almost… kept alive in her own pale, white, ghostly light, barring the red dashes that came from her lipstick, nails, and heels. Late 20s, perhaps, she glanced over at Iris unwaveringly.

Lizzie, meanwhile, carried herself over to the piano, and perched on the stool, close to the edge. An awkward silence followed, as she wondered what to play. There was always something awkward about playing for people – especially small audiences. Lizzie had a tendency to get halfway through a piece and just stop, saying that the piece just went on like that, even if it didn't. Lizzie, however, knew that she needed to play something well. So, she went for her favourite piece of music. I Giorni, by Ludovico Einaudi. Lizzie found her place on the keys, illuminated by the final remnants of orange sunlight, and she began to play.

The sounds of the keys reverberated in the heights of the hall, as steadily, Lizzie played the piece. It was her favourite – and so not only did she play it well, she played it with honesty, and she played it with love. The music came from inside her, her fingers and the piano merely the tools to make it into something the woman could hear. The woman, who sat back in her armchair, staring into space, and listening. Iris, meanwhile, hovered on the far side of the room, watching Lizzie from a distance, hugely impressed.

The room became captivated, united under that umbrella of music, and for six minutes the atmosphere became electric, as Lizzie's playing transported them to somewhere else, some… unearthly plane, the sort that can only be discovered through music.

And then it came to an end.

Lizzie stared at the keys, for just a bit longer, before glancing behind her to see the reaction of the strange woman. She didn't say anything, and so Lizzie tentatively got up and hovered by the piano.

"Why did you want me to do that?" Lizzie eventually asked.

The woman paused, but she did not hesitate – she knew what she was going to say.

"You."

That took Lizzie by great surprise. "I'm sorry?"

The woman spoke as if it was obvious.

"People inject themselves into what they do. I was reading you. Seeing you for who you truly were, and not who you told me. I didn't need you to play well, I needed you to play honestly. I'll take your case."

Thank god Lizzie played a piece she loved.

"Sit," the woman gestured to the armchair opposite her. "Your lapdog will have to stand."

"Oi!" Iris exclaimed, realising she was the lapdog. "I will bite you."

"I prefer the word sister," Lizzie said. Whoever this woman was, no matter how she was going to help her, Lizzie would not have Iris spoken to in such a way. The woman ignored her, however, and Lizzie sat in the opposite chair.

"Elizabeth Darwin," the woman spoke as if she were feeling the words in her mouth.

"Wait," Lizzie interrupted. This was going to go her way – and not the way of the sinister woman sat opposite her. The woman stopped, and looked up, arguably looking quite pleased that Lizzie had interjected in such a way. "I need to know who you are. How you know me, and how you knew where to find me."

"Who I am is of no concern to you."

"I think it is, actually. How did you know where to find –"

The woman held up her hand and Lizzie was instantly quiet – the woman exuded an authority, even with the smallest of gestures. "One question at a time. Due to your incessant pestering, the authority in this interrogation has returned to me."

"Who are you?" Lizzie returned to her original question, strangely enraptured by the woman – perhaps that was why she was adhering to her advice.

The woman relented – but Lizzie knew that it was deliberate.

"My name is Emma. I'm a private investigator."

"Why did you come to me?" Lizzie asked, remembering back to their first meeting, on that rainy day when the Doctor had come to pick her up.

"You're interesting."

Not the most detailed explanation Lizzie had ever heard, and as she looked over at Emma, Lizzie knew she was lying. She was a good liar, though. However, Lizzie was not going to keep on at her. She had much more pressing business to deal with – the main reason she'd phoned. Lizzie had to get this out of the way, she didn't want it haunting her any longer.

"Do you want me to expl –"

"I already know," Emma spoke as if Lizzie were merely being irritating. "You want information on Evangeline Cullengate and you want to know where she is."

"How did you –"

"Cullengate is unreachable," Emma seemed to have already begun on the investigation. "Nobody can contact her, nothing can get into Downing Tower, not even a TARDIS –"

Lizzie had no idea how she knew that – but then, it seemed obvious. A woman as clever as Emma, and one would pick up on the slightest of details. Why would Lizzie be there if a TARDIS could get to Downing Tower? They could find Cullengate instantly.

"Also," Emma continued. "Nobody has seen her for months. All her major speeches have been broadcast from her office, none of them in front of an audience. She's shutting herself away."

Fear, Lizzie thought. They'd destroyed Cullengate's greatest weapon, they'd promised to overthrow her regime… why else would she go suspiciously silent?

"Yes, Elizabeth. I'll research Cullengate for you. I'll find where she's gone."

"And payment?"

"Do not worry about that. Your trust in me is your payment. That will be all, Elizabeth. I'll be in touch."

Taking the hint, Lizzie stood up and hesitantly walked away. Emma turned and stared at the flames, watching as the wood beneath them burned, crackling, spitting, slowly dropping away, bit by bit.

Lizzie and Iris left the hall, and Emma didn't look at them as they did so.


	17. Special 1 The Naked Truth

**PROLOGUE**

"Dad…"

Her voice was broken, the voice of someone staring into the eyes of their death, and death giving her an unforgiving gaze in return. So many things, so little time to say it. Was this where life really ended up? A complete wasted experience, with everything meaningful rushed off, like the names of items on a shopping list, when it really, truly mattered.

"I guess… this is something I've been wanting to say for a long time. Because I've noticed it, since I was a kid, and it's – well, it's important for me to say, when… you know…"

And what a pain it was, to be so close to the end, and not even be able to put a name to the process that she was about to embark on. _Death_. She could only think about it. And even that made her gag.

Her father gave an acknowledging mumble, and so she continued.

"I don't want this to change anything between us – because, I guess I just need you to know, that I don't regret any of it. None at all. Every single moment was special, and even though I'm about to tell you what I'm about to tell you – just remember, that it doesn't impact on any of it."

A brief moment passed, because her father, who was sat behind her, and so she could not look him in the eye as she delivered this crushing revelation, was silent.

Finally, the moment had come. She had to destroy everything her own father thought of himself, perhaps even obliterate his self-esteem forever, as she delivered this crushing blow to his person. However, it had to come now, for this was not a conversation that could be had after death.

She braced herself, and she said the words.

"You're a complete dick."

"Seriously," Iris continued, ready to pull as many punches as she could. Except not literal punches, because of course, she was tied to the chair, and so could not move. Her father was bound to her, sat on a chair facing the other way. "If you weren't so awkward and admitted to the Archbishop that you weren't _actually_ Jesus from the off, we wouldn't be in this… mess."

"Intergalactic Evangelism, they take it far," the Doctor grimaced, looking up at the giant crimson flags emblazoned with a jet-black cross, hanging between the mighty stained-glass windows. They were in a huge, church-like room, that jutted out of the side of the mountain-top castle. Beyond the majestic windows on either side of them was nothing but air, and air, and air, stretching down below them, a mighty drop the length equivalent to the diameter of a fairly large town.

As well as the windows, a few religious tapestries were hung upon the wall, and at the far end of the great hall, a dais had been erected, upon which a lectern had been positioned, so someone could stand and address the ralliers in the hall.

It was also notable that the entire floor around them was burning with an awe-inspiring vigour.

Yes, because following their brief awkward altercation, it was seen that as a fitting punishment for their lies that they should burn to death, just as they would burn eternally when they entered Hell. So, the floor had been dowsed in petrol, and the two of them marooned on their island of seating in the middle.

As the events leading towards the Doctor and Iris burning to death were unfolding, approximately 100 miles away, the Doctor's TARDIS was thrashing its way through the sky, like a horse that had been agitated by a passing car and refusing to fly stably.

"For god's sake, what a bother my dear hubbie's got himself in," Cioné cried, as she grabbed on to the controls she was meant to be controlling for dear life.

"Wait a sec! I have an idea," Lizzie, who was also hanging onto the console, dashed away towards one of the corridors branching away from the main hub of the bigger-on-the-inside box, stumbling a few times as the TARDIS thundered its way through the snowy-white sky above the craggy mountain ranges below them. Not much later, she arrived back into the console room, with a rope bundled over her shoulder, upon which was attached a great big anchor. t was at this moment that Lizzie, realising she was going to have to use a lot of physical strength when embarking on her plan, decided she should probably do more exercise, though in her opinion, the sheer amount of corridor-running she had done with the Doctor was enough, and she would much rather a night in with a pizza.

Cioné's face brightened, after its normal cheery outlook had wavered following her pulling off a button that she presumed her husband must've reattached with a small chunk of blue tack. "Lizzie darling, you're a genius!"

Cioné then glanced at one of the screens, and checking her watch, concluded it should approximately be another two minutes before they flew over the sky chapel.

"Oh!" Cioné turned to Lizzie. "And send a text!"

As the chaos unfolded in the TARDIS above, a familiar tune began to float through the cobble rafters of the sky chapel.

 _It's going down, I'm yelling timber_  
 _You better move, you better dance_

Iris' heard her phones text tone go, and initially thought nothing of it, because she didn't care that O2 were informing her of the latest deals.

 _It's going down, I'm telling timb –_

Another message. It could've been important.

"Dad, you need to get my phone out my pocket."

There were a few seconds of silence, presumably as the Doctor formulated his plan of action. "… right."

Fumbling around to loosen the ropes binding his arms, he wriggled his arm slightly, so he could reach into her back pocket.

"Hold on," the Doctor paused. "What if this is about O2's latest –"

"You're in my back pocket, just get my stupid phone."

"Okay…," he had to grab a few times, before eventually his fingers clasped the handset, and he withdrew it awkwardly, at one time, much to Iris' loud and colourful protestations, nearly dropping it. He had, of course, told his daughter to have a little more respect for her father, but she had ignored him with an all-too-familiar rejection of authority. When the Doctor eventually negotiated his daughter's phone into her hand, Iris checked it, and sighed and audible sigh, while the Doctor tried as hard as he could to retract his legs up from the floor, as he felt the flames lick at his feet. "What is it?" he asked her.

"It's from Lizzie."

"And?"

 _AwkwardCatLady – 14:56_  
 _ **Move to the window. Right side.**_

Iris ignored her dad, as she quickly typed her reply with teenage speed.

 _PlanetoftheLesbians – 14:57_  
 _ **Which one?**_

"We need to get to one of the windows," Iris' already passionate pessimism dipped further as she looked over to the choice of three windows.

"Which one?" her dad asked.

"I'm just finding out!" she exclaimed, exasperated at her dad's irritatingness even though he couldn't help it.

 _It's going down, I'm yell –_

A new message!

 _AwkwardCatLady – 14:57_  
 _ **Not sure**_

"Brilliant," Iris mused aloud.

The Doctor clearly intercepted her train of thought. "Let's just... try the middle one and hope for the best."

"Good idea."

And so the two of them, tied back to back on rather flimsy wooden seats, decided to wriggle as fast as they could over to the middle stained-glass window on the right side. There were a few spots where the flames were less roaring, and so the two of them lifted their legs to a reasonable height, and although the bottoms of their trouser legs became singed, they did not suffer any major burning.

"Iris, we need to coordinate movement, we can't just –"

"Yes, thanks dad, I know that –"

"Good," her dad said, in a typical fatherly mediatory tone, and they began their awkward wriggle. "So, you just need to…"

"Yeah…," she muttered in response, trying to get her direction right.

"If you go to the left, you might…"

"Hmm, you're probably right there…"

"No, left –"

"Yes, I know!"

And then they suddenly stopped, as the Doctor realised that they were not going to reach the windows alive if something about this didn't stop soon.

"This isn't going to work," he literally put his foot down, before quickly retracting it as he felt the heat poke mockingly on the sole of his shoe. "Left," he calmly instructed.

Trying very hard not to swear at him, and reluctant to listen to a word he was saying, Iris moved to the left, and the Doctor did the same.

"Right," the Doctor continued.

"If you're going to do this until we get to the window –"

"Look, it's not far now, just keep going in this rhythm…"

Meanwhile, the sky chapel was in sight from the TARDIS. Another 30 seconds, and they would be there. Lizzie just hoped that the Doctor and Iris would be close enough to the window, and that Cioné's piloting would be accurate enough for the plan to be enacted as she hoped.

"You think it's alright if I get the doors?" Lizzie asked.

"Hmm, yes, probably best to go now, but do find something to hold on to."

Lizzie hobbled over to the TARDIS doors, finding herself having to find her way over a great obstacle – the mass quaking of the TARDIS as it tore through the sky. As soon as she threw open the TARDIS doors – doors which were partially blown upon by the gale-force winds rushing outside, she nearly tumbled out, and had to grab onto a railing to prevent herself from falling into the abyss. She could see the sky chapel as they hurtled towards it, and a strange feeling of panic burst up in Lizzie's stomach as she realised that all four of their lives depended upon Cioné's ability to smash a very big and very expensive stained-glass window.

In the sky chapel, the Doctor and Iris had reached the window – and they could see the TARDIS speeding very quickly towards them, leading both of them to wonder how successful this was going to be, if it was a rescue mission. It was getting closer now, the TARDIS, rushing through the sky, getting closer and closer to the sky chapel below, which in the grand scheme of things, was still suspended higher above sea level than most normal people have ever been in their life. Nearer and nearer, it would be seconds, and if this did not go well, they would either be crushed by the box and the great magnitude of interdimensional technology, or they would be sent hurtling thousands of miles to the ground below.

Brilliant.

And suddenly, the box was upon them, and commotion erupted in the chamber, as above the current roar of the flames, the glass window beside them smashed completely, and the TARDIS came spinning through at an impossibly fast speed. The Doctor and Iris ducked their heads, before looking up at their saviour whizzing only millimetres above their respective hairlines.

The next few seconds encompassed a huge variety of actions, but due to the deft-defying speed with which they happened, they seemed to proceed in a silent slow motion, with every sound becoming muffled. Above their heads, the TARDIS flew past, and the anchor, that the Doctor noticed Lizzie had thrown out of the doors, latched onto the rope joining their chair-prison to the roof, and tore it from the ceiling.

In the milliseconds of the interval between the rope being slack and then becoming taut, they saw the great oak doors of the chamber were flung open, and a stern looking man in shabby crimson robes strode in with a furious look on his face.

Iris gave him a sarcastic smile and a mocking wave, as those seconds elapsed, and the commotion burst into life around them again. The TARDIS smashed through the opposite stained-glass window, and the rope immediately heaved into life, yanking the two chairs the Doctor and Iris were tied onto. They were thrown across the floor of the chapel, and then suddenly the floor dropped beneath them, and they felt the wind throw them upwards.

The TARDIS was flying through the sky, with a chair dangling by a rope from the doors, beneath an almighty drop that could've easily killed the two occupants of the chairs.

Iris gazed around her, at the world – she felt the wind rush through her hair, and she looked up – there was only the endless snowy sky, stretching on forever and ever, and below her were the mountains, dipped in mist, and she couldn't see the ground, but it didn't matter. It was like being on one of those fairground rides – those swings that hoisted you far into the air on a single swing – except normally those swings didn't hoist you above certain-death, and also had safety precautions, unlike the rickety chair and rope which only seemed slightly hooked around the anchor. Lizzie poked her head out of the doors, and gave Iris a little wave.

Iris waved back, and then sat back, allowing herself to float whimsically through the sky, the feeling of being suspended above nothing utterly magical.

She was flying.

 **THE EIGHTH DOCTOR ADVENTURES**

 **THE 2017/18 SPECIALS - X1**

 **THE NAKED TRUTH**

 **WRITTEN BY ED GOUNDREY-SMITH**

"Just… don't talk to them again, okay? Jehovah's Witnesses, they're… weird like that," Lizzie explained.

"I didn't realise they _weren't_ some kind of folk band!" Iris defended herself. After all, they seemed kind of ridiculous in a folk band-y way.

Lizzie and Iris sat underneath a bus shelter – it was a crisp autumn day, with red and yellow and golden leaves floating melancholily down from the trees bordering the road, the sunlight flickering through them as they gently fell, painting pretty patterns on the road ahead of them. It wouldn't be long before winter would truly settle in, and any warmth would be obliterated by its coldness. However, the two of them were not scared of that, for there seemed to be a warmth between the two of them. Occasionally a car would drive past them, and the two of them sat, watching them, wondering where all the different occupants of those vehicles were going – happy places, or sad places, or maybe nowhere in particular. There was a sort of lazy poignancy in the air, as they sat beneath that bus shelter. The two of them were embarking on an adventure, just for a few months, that was going to be a rather intriguing experience. Unlike most of the mad, bonkers stuff they got up to in the TARDIS, this was going to be a little bit more… static.

It had transpired that the Doctor and Cioné had some urgent business to attend to, regarding a misfired time-loop. They had suspected it was going to be a time-consuming business, and so Lizzie and Iris had agreed to be dropped off on Earth, where they were to live. A fairly simple task, on the surface of it – however, life on Earth, as Lizzie had discovered, was rather trickier than one would imagine. The Doctor, being the intergalactic weirdo he was, had got Lizzie and Iris this flat in London, where they were to live out their lives being normal humans. Lizzie would do 'whatever' (to quote the Doctor), while Iris would deal with the assignments she'd been set during the academy winter holidays.

 _Normal humans…_

It was an unlikely prospect, but they were both determined to have the best crack at it that they could. Clearly it was getting off to a flying start – their temporary stopping point of Lizzie's old Dunsworthian flat had been visited by Jehovah's Witnesses – a group Iris had mistaken as a folk band.

"And just… never ask them when they're next touring, because they'll come back."

 _No less than five times._

"Any other tips about Earth-living?" Iris asked. She was excited – of course she was. A natural adventurer, a curious mind, hence her desire to travel the universe, and her love of the physics behind the universe. Her father bleeding through, it seemed, alongside his blind optimism whenever it came to throwing themselves into insane situations. And yet, excited as she was, Iris just wanted to blend in – not to be noticed. As a traveller, she didn't want to be the centre of attention – she'd much rather take it all in from the side-lines, an outsider, and watch the universe pass by in front of her. Of course, her individuality was desperately important – but Iris wanted to be that quirky girl seeing the universe – that was enough for her.

"Erm…," Lizzie thought. "The government is terrible. Don't be too flippant. Eat chips."

Lots of chips.

A few moments of silence passed, before Iris let out the largest, longest groan she could possibly muster, to emphasise how fed up she was of having to wait for the keys.

"Urrrrggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh."

Lizzie knew exactly what she was complaining about, and glanced at her watch for the time. The keys _should_ materialise any minute now.

"It won't be long," Lizzie said, knowing that what she was saying was going to make no impact on Iris' impatience.

Iris' excitement was dwindling slightly amidst the wait. Patience, no thanks. "Is this what time on Earth is like? Eternally… torturous."

If a little beautiful, Iris thought, watching the autumnal shades filtering through the trees and painting the street, a sign of time always passing – and, in fact, it looked quite beautiful.

"Yep," Lizzie confirmed. It most definitely was.

Suddenly, Iris' Pitbull ft. Kesha ringtone began to play, and Iris hoped that this would bring some relief to their wait.

 _NurseWho – 16:10_  
 _ **Keys arriving soon. Mum got tomato sauce in the detmat. circuits.**_

"… is that your dad?" Lizzie asked.

"Yeah," Iris muttered with an air of half-concentration, as she tapped out her reply. A few seconds later, as expected, that iconic noise that usually accompanied the TARDIS' arrival, began to echo through the bus shelter. Iris opened her hands, and found a set of house keys waiting for her, with markedly more patience than herself.

They both sat there for a few seconds more, perhaps because they were putting the future off, or perhaps because this was completely new to them and they had no idea what to do.

"It'll be fiiine!" Iris jumped up, clearly noting the atmosphere of anticipation. She was seemingly quite excited out about the whole thing, and even if she was nervous, it didn't show. With Iris' blasé remark, she was trying to sideline any emotions that were perhaps creeping in. Not wanting to talk about it, masking it behind an air of relaxed calm and outrageous humour.

It wasn't like Iris was going to be living alone. Lizzie, who had obviously done the whole 'human' thing before, had decided she would always look out for Iris – after all, they saw each other as sisters. Having said that, Lizzie was not completely certain that she had any more idea of how to function as a human than Iris did. Despite this, Lizzie would be there for her, whatever happened. Just as Iris had been there for her two weeks ago, when the two of them had made their journey to Palem Blue, where they met the mysterious private investigator Emma. So far, their meeting had led to no results, and they had heard nothing from Emma. But the encounter was there, at the back of Lizzie's mind…

They entered the building, and Lizzie and Iris began the journey up the set of stairs, to their new flat. Each step was a step closer to their new life – the stairs in the building were steep, but that didn't matter, Lizzie had climbed steeper to get to where she was then. There was, of course, the lift – but there was no way in hell Lizzie would ever succumb to the claustrophobia.

Iris was a good few steps ahead of her, bouncing up two steps at a time, nearly tripping over several of them, admiring the building, which wasn't even that amazing.

"We're going to have _such_ a cool life here, Liz," Iris gazed around her. "Even if it does smell of damp. A little bit."

"Yeah…," Lizzie agreed. Hopefully they were. Even if it did smell of damp.

The stairs seemed to take forever, but when they got to their floor, they realised that it had barely taken that long at all. Iris hesitated by the doors.

"What's up?" Lizzie noticed Iris fumbling around in her pockets.

"Lost the keys…"

 _Off to a wonderful start._

"Oops, sorry, found them," she chuckled, and pushed them into the lock, and after glancing at Lizzie, with a look of delight and excitement, Iris opened her new flat. "Arghh, this is exciting as hell," Lizzie heard Iris mutter, as she bustled her way inside. Lizzie sighed, and smiled, as Iris bounded forth into their new life. Lizzie hung back, just for a bit. A little bit of uncertainty, that was all. It was mad that she could do so many terrifying things, and yet starting a new adventure on her home planet was what scared her the most.

But she'd done it – she was there. All while trying to heal – something she'd needed to do a lot of, after sinking back into a wave of depression. She was back on her anti-depressants, she was going to counselling. Lizzie wasn't happy – but she was happier, and she was getting somewhere. Some days, though, she would wake up, and everything would be such a… slog to get through. And at every turn, the smallest things would haunt her, pestering her – that was it. A constant feeling of nagging emptiness, always on her back, and she'd just want nothing more than for it to go away.

Today wasn't too bad – perhaps those feelings had been masked, mainly with anticipation and nervousness. Iris always helped too, bursting into her life like a complete whirlwind and shaking it all up. But there was always that fear, that tomorrow, or the next day, might be bad again.

However, before Lizzie had any further chance to worry about whether tomorrow she would be crushed with a complete feeling of dread and a fear that the entire world was going to fall down around her, she heard a voice.

"OH. MY. LORD. OF. LORDINGTONS."

 _What_.

Several things did not make sense at all – the main one being that that voice was not possible. The voice was a voice inside her head – the voice of someone who didn't actually exist, the voice of someone who Lizzie Darwin had invented.

When she turned around, she saw Kym gazing at her, eyes as wide as saucers.

"Erm. Hi!" Lizzie muttered awkwardly, not sure whether Kym knew who she was. Lizzie then stopped, and had to catch up with her own mind – _Kym_ was stood in front of her, dressed in a bright pink fluffy coat, a garish pom-pom scarf, and gigantic high-heels. Lizzie had invented her, a friend who didn't care what people thought, who saw the greatest joy in the smallest of things. But that was the point – Lizzie had _invented_ her, she did not exist.

But somehow she did.

"You must be my new neighbour!" Kym bounded up to her. Clearly, she _didn't_ know who Lizzie was, even though the only logical conclusion was that Kym was straight out of Lizzie's head. Unless Kym was an actual person and Lizzie had created a dream around her, and then forgotten she was an actual person.  
None of the particulars, however, stopped Kym pulling Lizzie into an enormous hug. Eventually, she backed off, and held Lizzie by her shoulders as if she were imparting some crucial information.

"I'm Kym, Kym Gomez, that's 'Kym' with a 'Y' and 'Gomez' with a 'G-O-M-E-Z'–"

"Oh, erm, thanks," Lizzie murmured, not aware of any other spellings of the surname 'Gomez'.

"And you are…?"

Lizzie spluttered a few syllables, while the person she'd invented in her head stood in front of her, just as vividly as she'd ever been imagined, squealing in delight and not seeming at all concerned that her new neighbour had forgotten her own name.

"I'm, er, Lizzie…"

"Fabidabidoo to meet you, Lizworth. Can I call you that? I'm gonna call you that. I live just opposite you," Kym gestured to her own front door, the letters upon which had been decorated with glitter. "I lost the deposit," Kym said, without much care at all, as she noticed Lizzie eying the sparkles.

"Yeah… yeah you can call me that…"

Kym plucked Lizzie's phone out of her hands, and at a speed that would make light jealous, she typed in her number. "Call me any time, but not Thursdays and not every other Friday, because I do soulcycle on Thursdays and every other Friday I hit the town. Tbh, I hit the town most nights, but every other Friday I'm serious."

"Erm, right, thanks," Lizzie accepted her phone back – or, Kym placed Lizzie's phone back into her immobile, shocked hands, while Lizzie stood watching, eyes agape, in a state of sheer confusion that normally, she'd be able to make great efforts to hide.

"Are you living alone?"

"No," Lizzie made a bit of a rubbish attempt to regain myself. "I'm living with my sister, Iris."

"Aww, that's cute. I live on my own, but I'm a single pringle ready to mingle – every other Friday is when the mingling is serious, if you hadn't guessed. Anyway, Lizzinous, I will see you around, I need to go, nails to paint – not my own, I'm a beautician – do you like mine, though? I did them last night…"

Lizzie zoned out as Kym began her nail-related diatribe, and she vaguely heard herself say 'goodbye' – and just as quickly as she'd arrived, and knocked Lizzie into a gigantic existential crisis, Kym was gone again, prancing down the stairs, away from her sparkly flat.

Lizzie looked at her flat, and then over at Kym's flat. Kym actually existed. Someone she had invented, someone Lizzie had created for herself… existed. It made no sense at all, and as Lizzie entered her new flat for the first time, her mind was too distracted by the thought of Kym's existence to take in the fact she actually had quite a nice new place. It wasn't huge, but as Lizzie wandered into their living room, most of which was packed into boxes (boxes that had materialised in the flat – Time Lord removals), she knew that it would do just nicely.

Just nicely – with Kym living next door. It seemed that even when Lizzie was trying to live a normal life, the abnormal refused to leave her alone, with her fictional creations blazing into her own mind with enormous verve and vigour.

"You're most certainly correct," said the Black Cat perched on their sofa. "It does not make sense."

 _Oh my god_.

Lizzie checked herself, making sure that definitely wasn't hallucinating, that she hadn't become locked up in her own head – after all, in her travels with the Doctor she'd noticed such things to be a common appearance.

But no – Ulysses F. B. Higgensdale, the talking cat she'd invented _for herself,_ because she loved cats, and she thought it would be wonderful if they'd be able to talk – was definitely looking up at her from the edge of the sofa, amber eyes gazing at her with all their posh, yet camp, glory.

"You came back too," Lizzie muttered aloud, and yet, the black cat did not seem fazed as she addressed it. Then again – it was a talking cat, so perhaps it was used to the strange looks. It was not the fact she was faced with a talking animal, however, that was so befuddling. It was the fact Ulysses was so intrinsically linked to her, and there he was, sat on the sofa.

"I did," Ulysses purred. It didn't make sense, however – Ulysses seemed to recognise her, and yet Kym hadn't. "I've always been a manifestation of your conscience, Elizabeth," Ulysses explained, as if he could read her mind. Which apparently – he could. "Therefore, of course I know who you are… because in a way, I am partly _you_."

"You know what I'm thinking?" Lizzie asked it, hoping the answer would be no, and also hoping that the answer would be yes. _Talk to loved ones_ , said the counsellor. Wouldn't it be wonderful if they knew how she felt without her needing to explain?

"Don't be silly," Ulysses laughed. "Sometimes I can catch glimmers. But I am my own _fabulous_ cat."

Ulysses then went onto explain that although he was a construct of her mind, he had been born on Earth, to a horrendous family with several young children who had frequently pulled his tail. He had also engaged in several spats with their Great Dane.

"Anyway," Ulysses finished his tale of hardship and… tails, a grimace etched upon his feline features, and perhaps the makings of a tear from his amber eyes. "I made a bid for freedom, climbing over the fence, using the mindless pooch as a paw-up. What followed was a bitter slog, trawling down the M40 – I pilfered an articulated lorry – and eventually, I made it."

 _… right_ , Lizzie thought, as Ulysses wrapped up his tale. She was, admittedly, rather in awe of his brilliant escape. Also, she realised that if Ulysses knew who Lizzie was, then chances are, he would be aware of how he'd come into existence. And Kym as well.

"How do you exist, then?" Lizzie asked.

"Okay darling, let me explain," Ulysses patted the sofa with his paw, gesturing for Lizzie to sit down. With a surprising amount of reluctance for a girl who was looking at an anthropomorphic cat who was a manifestation of her own conscience, Lizzie walked over and sat down beside it.  
Ulysses' explanation was simple.

"The force of your love for them was so strong, you brought them back."

Lizzie hesitated – after all, normally it was much more complex than that. "I… loved them into existence?"

"Absolutely!" Ulysses placed a reassuring paw on Lizzie's hand. "And for those idiots who thinks there's a solid scientific explanation for everything, when you brought back the universe, you were powering the Memory Graveyard with your own mind. The force of the electrical impulses to the brain states holding those mental constructions meant that when you were plugged into the Memory Graveyard, you brought them back. But to any normal person, yes. You loved them back."

 _Wow_. It wasn't often the world was so kind.

"Hey."

 _Oops_. Lizzie glanced over, and saw Iris staring, provoking an irritated sigh from Ulysses, who clearly wasn't particularly up on explaining the fact he could talk  
to someone else. Of course – when Ulysses had just been in her head, only she had been able to hear him speak. But now… now he existed.

Lizzie had brought a talking cat into existence.

Iris, with a burning excitement in her eyes, flew over to the sofa and sat in front of Ulysses. "You're a talking cat."

"Yes," Ulysses spoke through gritted teeth.

Iris paused, and Lizzie could see her mind ticking. How could there possibly be a talking cat, surely that defied all the science Iris had ever learned, the science she'd pledged her life to investigate?

"Do you know a talking rabbit called Melvyn?" Iris asked, contrary to Lizzie's expectations.

Ulysses thought for a moment, as if there were many talking animals and they all knew each other. "Top hat, broken watch, misogynist?"

"That's the one!" Iris confirmed, quite giddy with excitement.

Lizzie looked at her, and then at Ulysses. "There's a talking cat, and you're okay with this?"

"Yeah, 'course," Iris shrugged it off, as Ulysses rested his head on his paw, posing elegantly in front of Lizzie and Iris. "This is so wonderful, I love new things," Iris mused, a great big grin on her face. Her voice quickly changed into something of intrigue and curiosity. "How'd you exist, though?"

"I'm a construct of Lizzie's imagination. She loved me into existence."

"Huh?"

Ulysses sighed. "I was something in Lizzie's mind, I came into existence when Lizzie was plugged into the memory graveyard. Your new next-door neighbour is the same."

"Ooh, that's cool," Iris held out her hand as a form of greeting, and Ulysses placed his paw into it, and they shook. "Can you stay with us? You're hella fascinating, and hilarious."

"Well, erm," Ulysses put his paw to his face, and if cats could blush, Ulysses would most certainly be blushing. "If it's not too much trouble…"

"Of course not!" Iris jumped up and strode over to the window, becoming illuminated in the evening sunshine. "Is it, Lizzie?"

Lizzie was not paying much attention to the conversation, because her mind was elsewhere – while Iris and Ulysses had been making friends, Lizzie had been preoccupied with the very first thought that had entered her mind was soon as she'd set eyes upon Kym, and discovered that somehow the people she'd invented in her head were coming to life before her very eyes. If Lizzie had loved Kym into existence, and she'd loved Ulysses into existence, then surely, logic would dictate that the person she loved most of all would _also_ come back into existence.

Except, the situation was already extremely far from logical, and Lizzie had no idea whether she was just making up excuses in her brain to give her some hope.

But, at that moment, Lizzie didn't think there was anything wrong with blind, insane hope. After all, she'd been told to concentrate on happy thoughts, on good things, as part of her recovery – and that was a very happy thought, a comforting one. The perfect partner she'd created for herself, a… soul mate (a term that Lizzie actively despised) – but in this case, it seemed the term most apt, as he'd been created from her soul – someone she could love, someone who would understand her, and even when he didn't, someone who would always accept her. Perhaps for once, the world would be kind to her.

So, as Lizzie looked at Iris and Ulysses, stood in the light of the setting sun, she knew that she had one job. And perhaps it was impossible, perhaps nothing would ever come of it. But at least, there was hope.

There was hope that Leo Akram, her imaginary boyfriend (which sounded ridiculous), was around, _somewhere_.

Hope that he was alive.

* * *

And so their life on Earth began.

Lizzie started work in a cute second-hand bookshop/tearoom – perhaps it was barely a change from her former employment in that terrible little café in Dunsworth, but Lizzie didn't think so. She would sell books, she would make tea – she would even talk to people, and not hate every second of it. There was something about London – she never felt as if she were constantly being judged. Lizzie could live as herself, and that gave her true fulfilment. Occasionally she would smuggle Ulysses in, and he'd sit behind the counter and sip tea from a saucer (because it is a myth that cats like milk, apparently – in fact, Ulysses' true poison was red wine). And whenever she got home at night, she would sit out on their balcony, and she would write, as the stars shone brightly above her.

Lizzie was happier than she'd been in a long time. She was content. Sometimes she would be bugged by anxious thoughts; that the days wouldn't last forever, that she couldn't just keep… hopping around the universe with her weird space-family. Some days were harder than others, some days her contentment was sullied by thoughts she'd rather bury – some days, the shop seemed tedious, Iris seemed irritating, cats couldn't talk for a reason. But other days, it was so easy to put those thoughts behind her and focus on the happy moments. Even though she knew her depression was always haunting her, Lizzie was coping. As she sat in the shop, and looked around at the crammed, musty shelves, with the distinct aromas of various teas sneaking delightfully in from the next room, she felt as if she were looking around at her life – and in those moments, she was truly _happy_.

So, she held onto it – because she never knew when she'd slip back into the dark places she'd spent so long.

Occasionally her mind would drop back to Leo – her dreams of finding him. But she wasn't desperate – hope burned vigorously inside her, and she dreamt that one day, they would meet again. _One day_.

Iris, meanwhile, _was_ getting on with the assignments she was meant to be doing, even if the Doctor had to chivvy her along whenever he phoned. The majority of her time on Earth, however, was spent exploring… gaming. Already she'd convinced her father, with her usual, if slightly boisterous, charm, to buy them several games consoles, and so Iris spent the majority of the time sat in front of the television, eating lots of pizza and overdosing on Fanta. At night, Iris would travel into the city, and see if through all the night pollution, she could see the stars. And perhaps she would scribble a few notes for her lessons, but usually, Iris would just gaze at the 21st century night sky.

About a month into their life on Earth, _something_ happened. Something that would change all of their lives,

It all began with a knock on their door – or several knocks, to be precise, notably to the rhythm of _Despacito_. And then it all _really_ began with the words Kym spoke, when Lizzie opened the door to find her standing there.

"I have an idea."

The words were quickly followed up by some expletives, which translated roughly as "your cat talks", as Kym sidled past Lizzie and strode into the flat, where Iris was curled up on the sofa in a flamingo onesie with several bits of popcorn stuck to the fluff and lodged in her unwashed hair, an X-Box controller in her lap, and one in front of Ulysses, as Iris explained how it worked.

"Hi," Iris muttered, her voice muffled under the massive mouthful of popcorn she'd just engulfed.

"Good morning," Ulysses spoke with his usual eloquence.

Kym's jaw dropped further than Iris' dignity. "What the fu –"

"Okay, Kym, come and sit down," Lizzie guided her over to one of the chairs in their kitchen, and not the sofa, considering it had been Iris' domain for at least two weeks. Kym's breathing was becoming extremely heavy and effortful, and Lizzie was a little bit concerned she was having a heart attack. "Deep breaths," Lizzie reassured her, knowing from her past experiences (in her head), that Kym was prone to hyperventilating whenever she saw something weird.

And a talking cat was spectacularly weird.

"Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod," Kym took a gigantic gasp of air, but even that failed to placate her lungs, as she rocked back and forth on the chair, and then pointed at Ulysses as if she were a witch-hunter and Ulysses had been busy using his dark magic to kill new-born babies. "That's a talking cat."

Ulysses grumbled. "Ah, humanity. Ever the unintelligent ones."

"Sorry Ulysses," Lizzie apologised on Kym's behalf, as Kym continued to mutter to herself.

"That's a talking cat, that's a talking cat, that's a talking cat, that's a talking cat –"

"I will never be over the fact you invented her, Liz," Iris laughed, as Kym continued to grapple for as much air as possible.

Lizzie glared at her, and then gave Ulysses a 'please will you do this massive favour for me' look.

Ulysses sighed as if he were a sulky teenage feline. "Do I _have_ to?"

"Please," Lizzie smiled. That swayed the cat, and with a heavy sigh and a heavy heart, Ulysses slipped off the sofa, and prowled across the floor to the kitchen chair where Kym sat suffocating in shock.

She glanced up when Ulysses held out his paw.

"My name is Ulysses F. B. Higgensdale esquire," Ulysses hesitated before continuing – and even then, the sarcasm in his voice was notable. " _Pleasure to meet you_."

Reluctantly, Kym took Ulysses' paw in two fingers and gently shook it.

"Okay I'm pretty sure this is cat-ism now," Iris gave Kym a look of contempt, as in her state of complete shock, Kym kept shaking Ulysses' paw, over and over and over, while Ulysses glared at Lizzie and Iris, who both mouthed the word 'sorry', before retreating to the sofa to laugh at Ulysses' misfortune from a distance.

"Can all cats talk," Kym asked vacantly, making it sound like more of a vague statement than a question.

"No," Ulysses informed her. "I am an exception. Elizabeth and Iris saved me during a _very dark time._ "

"And you… live with them." Again – another vague question from Kym.

" _Yes_ ," Ulysses spoke with a patronising slowness.

"Okay, I think I'm getting this now," Kym said slowly, as she ran the idea of a talking cat over in her head.

"Anyone want drinks?" Lizzie interrupted. "Like, anyone? Erm, tea, coffee? Yep… I'll just… I'll just make some drinks…"

While Lizzie was making drinks, Kym embarked upon a rigorous interrogation of Ulysses.

"Do you drink milk?" Kym asked.

"Red wine," Ulysses purred.

"Chase mice?"

"I chase _dogs_." And irritating humans, he added to himself as an afterthought.

"Do you like music?"

"ABBA."

"Oh!" Kym's delight at recognising ABBA was completely over the top and clear from her outburst and giggles. "I know them! They're the ones about the super troopers or whatever."

 _Yep_ , Lizzie thought, glancing over from the kettle. _They're the ones_.

When the tea was made, and Kym seemed quite accustomed to the idea of a talking cat, she stood up and declared:

"Okay, everyone, I need to go through my idea," Kym shepherded them all over to the sofa in a blaze of pink fur and feather-boas. "Sit. And you too, Uly-whatsit, if you want."

Awkwardly, Lizzie, Iris, and Ulysses sat down beside each other on the sofa, looking up at Kym as she stood imperiously ahead of them, an effect not reduced by the sheer height of her high-heels. It got even more nauseating when Kym began to pace back and forth, before elegantly turning to face them all.

It was her next word that truly set the incidents in motion. Her next scheme, which would stem all from that lone, singular word, would be an injection of excitement into their life on Earth – the plan would bring them trials and tribulations, but it would shower them in great joy and happiness as well – and all of it would originate from the one-syllable word about to be spoken by Kym Gomez. There was an ominous sense of anticipation before she said it, as if the room itself knew of the colossal effect of the upcoming word.

"Men," Kym declared.

" _Women_ ," Iris corrected straight away, already knowing exactly the direction of the conversation.

"Aww, you're a lesbian?" Kym grinned. "That's cute."

" _Yeah_ ," Iris mused. "Hella cute when I can feel society trying to straighten me at every turn."

"I propose, ladies and cat," Kym spoke as if she were addressing parliament. "– that we go out on the pull."

Lizzie had never heard such a horrific idea ever before. She could barely function in most public places, let alone anywhere where her prime goal was to actually… meet someone. Of course, her mind drifted briefly over to Leo, whether he might actually exist, just as Kym did – but that had no weight on Lizzie's sheer detestation of the idea (oh, who was she kidding, of course it did).

But the point still stood – the thought of going out to meet people was horrific, she would much rather stay in, in her bubble of a flat, far away from any of the night life.

"Lizzinator, don't kill me," Kym held up her hands in defence. "I can see this is an uncomfortable idea for you – I know you're a shy, indoors-y person – but the only way to improve your crippling self-confidence issues is to go out and take the plunge."

"I don't have crippling self-confidence issues," Lizzie protested futilely, knowing full well that she definitely had crippling self-confidence issues, but also knowing she had to put up as much of a fight as possible to escape the terrifying clutches of London's night life.

"To be fair, Liz," Iris sounded reluctant. "You do, and you know you do."

Lizzie grumbled, and eventually, through gritted teeth, muttered " _fine_ …"

"YAY!" Kym exclaimed, delighted to have some new friends to go out clubbing with.

"Count me in," Iris muttered through another mouthful of popcorn. "We're going to get Lizzie her life back."

Before Lizzie could protest, she just sat back, and smiled. She had a life – but… what was wrong with going on a night-out? Everyone else did it, perhaps it would be a laugh. And maybe, she would find some fulfilment she'd been unknowingly lacking.

Even so – she was not delighted about everyone thinking she was so sad and needed an injection of excitement in her life. Was it a crime to want to muddle through it the way she wanted, without everyone wading in and trying to deal with her problems? It made her irritated, and she wanted even more to withdraw into her own bubble of isolation (a bubble that she knew would just make her feel worse). And so she was going to keep up her miserable looks, to make clear her apathy towards the current situation.

"YAAY!" Kym yelled, causing Ulysses to recoil as she produced sounds so loud only a cat could hear them. "Right, I'm gonna be back here tomorrow night, we're gonna go, I have a place in mind, it's gonna be hillares. Uly, you're –"

"Please don't call me that," Ulysses scowled, as Kym seemed to fly past the sofa in her excitement towards the flat's door.

"– coming too," she yelled back, ignoring Ulysses' protests.

They heard the door slam behind them, and Lizzie, Iris, and Ulysses sat back on the sofa, completely spellbound by Kym's 'plan'.

"Why'd you all think I need a life?" Lizzie grumbled, as she stood up and shuffled over to the _Radio Times_ to check what TV she'd be missing when their escapade took place.

" _Because_ ," Iris turned back to the X-Box. "You're depressed, and I love you, and I want you to be happy!"

"I don't appreciate being hauled out of the flat." _Bugger_. She'd miss the Corrie double-bill.

"I know. But, Liz, I can see it sometimes – you just stare into space, and you hide it and you pretend you're fine, but you're not. No amount of medication and no amount of counselling can ever give you a taste for life again – and so, that's what we're going to do."

Lizzie skulked away from the Radio Times, and over to their balcony – and she opened the doors, and stepped out into the brisk, evening air. _A taste for living_. The words kept echoing in her mind, they did as she slumped into one of the deck chairs, listening to the kids playing in the park below, the sound of footballs kicking, of parents sat chattering nearby. She could see the tree-lined road, and the birds making their autumnal journey from one tree to the next. Some teenagers stomped past them, scaring the birds off in their loudness, their music echoing up the buildings to the block of flats – and she heard an agitated neighbour call down below. On the balcony below, she heard a champagne bottle burst open, a celebration in liquid form, flowing into the glasses – and she heard them laugh, and thought that something wonderful must have happened.

She heard life.

And perhaps it was true. Perhaps Iris was right. Lizzie could sit and enjoy a sunset, she could find comfort in her comfort-zone – but as to actual _living_? As to straying further outside those boundaries, to the highs, the lows, the laughter, the tears – it all left her cold. Lizzie was getting very little satisfaction, it all just left her cold. Suddenly, she felt lower than she'd done before – the medication, the doctors, the counselling, none of it was making any difference – she was the same as she'd been after the tower fell into the pit of fire, after the Memory Graveyard. And it made her feel terrible, because Lizzie was trying – she was trying so hard to get through it.

Suddenly, she felt Iris slump down next to Lizzie – in the same deckchair, a chair there was barely enough room for both of them on, so they were rather cooped up together, and a chair was creaking ominously under their weights.

"Don't be a negative nelly, Elizabeth," Iris sarcastically scolded her. "You've come so far. I remember the days when you were really bad, and you barely left the TARDIS. And now look! You're… selling books, serving tea, looking at the stars with me. But I want you to see more! There's so much cool stuff in the universe. There's also Donald Trump, but even so. Cool stuff!"

Lizzie laughed, knowing Piers Morgan was a renegade Time Lord. Iris was just trying to help her cope, just trying to help her get through all of it. Iris was just loving her. In fact, Lizzie didn't know where she'd be without her.

"So. Operation _Lizzie's life_ is a go," Iris sat back, before noticing Lizzie's sniffing – there was definitely a smell in the air. "Yeah, I need to shower. The X-Box called me for like, two weeks."

"And you're the one saying I need a life…"

They both laughed at that, as they sat back in the tiny deckchair to listen to the sound of life passing them by.

* * *

"Oh, Uly, babes, you look stunners –"

"Learn to speak properly," Ulysses instructed Kym, who towered over him even more than usual, due to her heels which were higher than Kym herself. It turned out that Kym hadn't been doing any drugs, though – Iris had run a cheeky medical scan and it transpired Kym was just crazy.

The four of them were ready to go, they were just waiting for Kym to put the finishing touches to her make-up. Kym looked as if several animals had died to make her leather trousers and fur coat, and as if she were dressed in half of the UK's gold reserves. Iris was ready, and as Lizzie looked at her, she realised how much she'd changed, from the little girl she'd once known. Ulysses had brushed his silky black coat (and Lizzie was quite certain he was wearing contact lenses to enhance the yellow in his eyes). Meanwhile, Lizzie looking her normal, unassuming self – a self she was quite happy about, and would not change to anybody's request. Yes, she would allow people to try and help her, but she was going to be her own person during that process.

"RIGHT LADIES!" Kym screamed, as if they were already in the club and shouting over the music. "LET'S GOOOOOOO."

 _Oh god_ , Lizzie thought to herself, as Kym charged down the stairs at a speed too fast for high-heels. The adventure was beginning, and quite frankly, she was terrified.

* * *

"Like, _apparently_ , it's a massive deal, and just because I like tits I have to make a big deal of it," Iris complained, as the four of them hovered on the escalators in the tube station – Kym leading the way, followed by Lizzie, followed by Iris, with Ulysses bringing up the rear.

"Well darling," Ulysses purred, from the escalator step beneath Iris. "I think it is _fabulous_ that you're so… _gay_ , quite frankly."

Iris thought for a few moments – yes. It was definitely fabulous. Even so, she would never not be irritated by the fact straight people didn't have to come out. Love did not have to be boxed in, and gay people did not have to be seen as… outside the box.

"Thank you, Uly," Iris nodded, grateful for the Cat's purrs of wisdom.

"You're _always_ welcome, Iris," he ignored the use of Kym's hideous pet-name 'Uly', and placed a reassuring paw upon Iris' foot.

"EVERYONE! SELFIE TIME." Kym's voice rang out in the tube station like a fire alarm, and before the whole escalator realised what they were doing, everyone, including those who had no part in their fateful clubbing adventure, was leaning into the centre for the most magnificent selfie (apart from Ulysses, who was lifted into shot by Iris). Kym took a reassuring glance at the photo, and then yelled down the escalator to all the selfie participants, "THANK YOU EVERYONE!"

* * *

"RIGHT GUYS, DRINKS ON ME!" Kym danced into the hellish throng, throwing her arms into the air and waving them vigorously.

As soon as Lizzie stepped into the club (Ulysses under her jumper, to ensure the bouncers didn't mistake him for a stray), she had absolutely no idea what was going on. First of all, it was notable that she could barely see, and quickly she was fumbling through a huge swarm of people, all crammed into the tight can of the nightclub like dancing, sweating, sardines. Lizzie took a deep breath as she plunged through the mob, no idea where she was going, cramped aimlessly in the sheer number of people – all she could see was darkness, flickered with streaks of red and gold and blue light, occasionally illuminating the odd head, or arm, or leg, pressed right up close to her.

As she was so packed into the dense thicket of humans, Lizzie came up from the masses for breath, and the smell of alcohol and sweat crept up her nose, so strong it almost made her faint. The volume of the music was so powerful it tore right through her, making her very innards vibrate vigorously as the dropping base ripped through her existence. All of her senses were completely overwhelmed with a visceral confusion, and she tried to hold out a hand to guide herself, but it became fatefully lost in the darkness. There was no hope – Lizzie was never going to escape this ram-packed horde – so she allowed herself to be washed away by a crowd of shouty women on a hen night.

However, when Lizzie believed she was about to be engulfed forever by the crammed crowds, a familiar hand grabbed her, and pulled her to safety. When Lizzie blinked, she was in a small clearing amongst the horrific swarm, with Iris, Kym, and Ulysses (who had deftly navigated the crowds from the floor).

"WHAT WE ALL HAVING THEN?" Kym bellowed. Lizzie suddenly realised they were beside the bar, a heavily tattooed and pierced man leaning over.

"Can I get a tea…?" Lizzie glanced aimlessly around at the chaos descending around her.

"We should have cocktails?" Ulysses suggested, which sent Kym into a rather excited daze.

"OH. MY. LOOOOOORD. OF COURSE, ULY DARLING YOU'RE A GENIUS."

"Yes, I am rather," Ulysses prowled after Kym to the bar, before hopping onto a barstool, displaying his amazing feline acrobatic skills. "Hi…," Ulysses spoke to the bartender with a silky softness. After doing a quick double take and realising that he was, indeed, talking to a talking cat, the bartender whispered 'hi' in return, too mystified to make it audible over the music.

Five minutes later, Lizzie, Iris, Kym, and Ulysses were sat around a table, shouting at each other to be heard.

"I have never seen you so confused!" Iris said to Lizzie – and it was true. For once, Lizzie was looking like a genuine fish-out-of-water, with no idea, at all, what chaos had engulfed her life since she'd stepped into the club.

Lizzie scrunched up her face in disgust as she took the first sip of her cocktail. "What is _this_?" she grimaced.

"Tequila sunrise," Iris downed hers in one, leading to gasps from the others, who also noticed Ulysses and the bartender eying each other up.

And so their night began, a night of crazy antics and chaos. Several cocktails later (not for Lizzie, who was more focussed on not fainting under the pressure of surviving in an environment so full of… people), Kym was ploughing into the centre of the club, throwing her arms violently in the air, in an act that was probably meant to be dancing. At one point, Kym seemed to meet a rather dashing gentleman who went by the name of Brent – a gentleman who Ulysses took an instant liking to, and he spent the rest of the night watching him above the rim of his wineglass. Iris seemed to be enjoying herself as well, dancing with a few different women – and when Lizzie came over to ask Iris if she wanted another drink, Iris seemed quite… engaged.

"Iris!" Lizzie had to shout over the music. However, when Lizzie caught sight of her, in a booth, crammed up between the seat and the wall, her lips firmly locked onto a woman, Lizzie stopped herself and realised that she probably shouldn't intrude.

"Shall I just… yeah, I'm just gonna – I'll just… just go…"

Several hours passed, and the four of them trekked through various different clubs, and Lizzie seemed to be experiencing life at its maddest and anarchic. It wasn't to her taste, perhaps, but Lizzie was enjoying herself, in a peculiar way. There was something magic, about seeing life tick on around her. On their adventure, she'd seen love, she'd seen break-ups, she'd seen people dancing just for the hell of it. There was something strangely reassuring in that – seeing other happy people. At the same time, it made her jealous – but most of all, she was just happy for them, and that made her happy.

So, Lizzie sat back, and she decided not to worry about the bedlam, not to panic about the commotion. Because the thing that reassured her most of all about their night-out? Lizzie had discovered there was life after what she was going through – and that made her optimistic. Perhaps, one day, she would dance again, just as Kym had, with such beautiful disregard of what everyone thought.

The pinnacle of the night, however, came when they were in club #5, and Kym, Iris, and Ulysses were doing shots. Lizzie had done the first two round – but she was a terrible lightweight and was already feeling sick. Alcohol was clearly not for her.

Someone was observing their game, however. Observing Iris…

"Hey."

The four of them turned around, to see a gigantic, muscly, tattooed man looming over their table. His leather jacket was torn, perhaps deliberately for him to display his enormous muscles, which were bulging imperiously through the tears in the material. He scowled at Iris, and then cracked his knuckles – for he had seen Iris drink the cocktail, and he decided that he had found a challenger to his throne.

As the man stood over them, Ulysses nudged Lizzie. "While this incident unfolds, I'm going to speak to _Pierre_ ," The cat slipped away, and began his seductive prowl to the bar, leaving his seat empty as he eyed up a handsome looking gentleman.

It was not empty for long, however, as the huge, tattooed man, who they swiftly learned went by the name of Death-Spike, descended to sit opposite Iris (dwarfing her in the process). Iris' was not intimidated by the gigantic man, however. Instead, she leaned forward on the table and squared up to him. Their eyes became locked in a standoff, as neither was determined to blink first.

Eventually, Death-Spike spoke, in a deep, gravelly, 20-a-day voice. "I will drink you under the table," he declared, a blood-curdling look engraved on his menacing features. At that moment, two of Death-Spike's thugs came striding from the crowds, each balancing a silver platter upon their hands – and on top of each, was set an identical collection of shot glasses.

"Pfft," Iris giggled in his face – something Death-Spike never took kindly to. "Whatevs. Bring it on."

"Oh my fishsticks," Kym interjected, as she began fumbling in her clutch-bag, spilling various make-up products all over the table. Death-Spike's dreaded look changed from pure anger to confusion, as Kym eventually presented her phone as if it were an ancient forgotten artefact. "Need to film this, put it on Insta, hold on."

Iris, annoyed because she'd thought Kym was complaining about something serious (clearly she didn't know Kym well enough), wasn't sure why this drinking game was so significant. Thankfully, Kym was on hand to provide some context.

"Death-Spike has never lost a drinking game. Ever."

"… shit." Iris suddenly realised what she'd gotten herself into – but there was no backing out now. So, she turned back to Death-Spike, cracked her own knuckles, and prepared to fight, for there was no way she was going to let the idiot in front of her walk away from this victorious. Meanwhile, Death-Spike was smiling smugly as Kym had been describing his reputation, and he began to rub his hands together.

The two thugs elegantly placed the two platters down in front of the belligerents – for this game was a serious contest that came with a serious reputation. A skinny man with the most-almighty braided beard crept up to the side of the table, stop watch in hand. Several phone-cameras were also pointed in their direction, just in case any evidence needed to be faked to prove Death-Spike was the winner.

"3… 2… 1… BEGIN!"

And suddenly, they were off. Iris zoned out from the madness around her, as it seemed the entire club had flocked to watch this terrifying battle – and it seemed that all of them, barring Kym and Lizzie (who was watching this with great interest and intrigue), were screaming at the tops of their lungs,

" _DEATH-SPIKE DEATH-SPIKE DEATH-SPIKE DEATH-SPIKE."_

Iris could not pay attention to the thunderous chants in favour of her opponent, however – so she zoomed out, for in this contest, there were two things. Herself, and the alcohol. And time seemed to pass in slow-motion, Death-Spike's hymns becoming muffled background noise, as Iris, one my one, trawled her way through the shot glasses, tipping the alcohol down in one, the taste, the feel of it, everything, completely bypassing her, the liquid making a one-way no-stop trip to her stomach.

Of course, for everyone else in the room, Iris did this in seconds, whisking through the shots and guzzling the tequila before Death-Spike had even looked over the rim of his first glass.

And, knowing she had aeons to spare, with a vociferous smugness, Iris slammed the last shot glass down onto the table.

The crowds erupted into gasps, and then a deathly silence followed – for everyone became so captivated in this contest that the music had been turned off, and every single person in that building was watching the events unfold. The deafening, ear-splitting environment they'd entered had been shattered by this massive stunt – for this wasn't what was meant to happen – Death-Spike was meant to ruin his competitor, and booming applause was meant to explode through the club.

Instead, the girl had completely annihilated him, and made Death-Spike look quite ridiculous.

A few rounds later, and the mood had changed.

" _IRIS IRIS IRIS IRIS IRIS_ ," the crowds bellowed, louder than they'd ever screamed for Death-Spike. All chants were singing her praises, all eyes in the room were on her, all hands and feet were being drummed on the floor in her favour. And when she inevitably beat the burly, muscly giant in front of her, the masses detonated into rowdy, boisterous, chaotic shrapnel, all ringing for Iris and her lead-lined stomach.

It became clear this was not a fight Death-Spike could hope to win – and so, it wasn't long before he eventually gave up the giant gold chain hanging around his beefy neck, and named Iris 'queen'.

While this had been going on, Lizzie had decided to slip out. This wasn't really her scene, not at all – and she was grateful that her friends had tried, but there wasn't anything Lizzie was going to get out of this. So, taking one last look at Iris metaphorically bitch-slapping Death-Spike, Kym watching, eyes agog, Instagram-streaming, and Ulysses flirting with Pierre at the bar, Lizzie had left the club, and made her way out into the night.

The night was bracing, but after the pressing body-heat of the club, the cold, autumn-night air was exactly what Lizzie needed. She waved awkwardly at a group of men smoking something that probably wasn't tobacco, and walked down the street. It was late, in fact – gone two in the morning, and the majority of the wild party-goers of were cooped up were either in their clubs and pubs and house-bashes, but there were a few huddled packs on the streets, often shouting at nothing, just because it was fun.

Lizzie had seen that, tonight. People living, just because they could. Just because they were alive. She missed that, she missed having a true… thirst for living. Happy, yes. Willing to die? Well… yes. Lizzie still hadn't processed it properly, still hadn't come to proper grips with the funny illness going on inside her funny head. And she'd tried, she'd tried so hard to come past that depression, to come past the scars left deep by Evangeline Cullengate – but no matter how hard, Lizzie could not find a way around it. It was rooted in her, and she wanted it to go – but it wouldn't. Lizzie didn't think it ever would, and all that she would have, was the hope that she could cope. The hope that she'd at least salvage some happiness from her complete wreck of a life.

One could cope, but that was not to be confused with being on top of the world. _On top of the world_. Maggie said that – Lizzie could remember, her childhood self, walking in the garden, and Maggie saying that she was on top of the world. And not even those memories would fill Lizzie with any kind of positivity. Most people thought longingly of their childhoods, but Lizzie didn't. What did she even have to think longingly for?

Except… the people.

And at that moment, as Lizzie meandered along that night-time street, guided only by the warm, comforting glow of the streetlamps, she saw a bridge, stretching over the Thames. Lizzie had no idea where she was, she'd just… blundered away from the club, just… walking, as if subconsciously, she was going somewhere – but her awake self wasn't sure where. Lizzie continued on her way, and she trudged onto the bridge, making her way to the centre.

She turned, and she saw the life she'd been missing. The river, churning viscerally beneath her feet and ahead of her, twisting and turning through the city, the beating heart of London – the reason the city existed. She saw some people, half of them drunk, half of them not, giving in to the night, and dancing in the light of the moon. All of them happy, to be alive at that moment.

And ahead of her, on both sides of the river, Lizzie saw the skyscrapers, humanity reaching up to the skies as far as they possibly could – there were people, buzzing around at the top, as if they could touch the stars burning brightly above their heads. But Lizzie knew, in her heart, that the people who stood on the ground and gazed, were closer to the stars than anyone else. If you could look up and dream, if you could love something, then perhaps you would be closer to it than anyone, even if they had it in their grasp.

And she saw the final frontier, the horizon, the blurring of the murky green river into the infinite night sky, the indigo and the blue and the navy, all rolled into a watercolour splashed across the heavens above, and speckled with yellow and crimson and green, the beacons of hope for the universe. She saw the end of the miserable Earth and the arrival of the joy and euphoria of space, displayed above her now like a map, perhaps showing her where she needed to go. These were the stars, as they were a million years ago – and Lizzie loved them, and she felt that love lasting a million years, as she watched them that night. For love was a powerful thing, love could last for an infinity, and it could join people, even when they were further apart than all of time. Lizzie loved the skies, and she loved them fully and intimately.

Lizzie had people she loved, people she loved more than anything else. People who would never leave her, even when they were gone. The only reason she'd ever bent the knee to Kym, and joined her on this excursion, was so she could spend time with those people – the people who cared about her, the people who wanted to see her happy. Lizzie understood what Iris had meant, when she'd declared she was going to get Lizzie's life back – she'd meant she was going to get those people around Lizzie – the people who loved her.

Perhaps that was the point of life, the truth behind it – love. Across all of time and all the universes, love. And the stars, and the map they'd become – perhaps that was to guide her, to help her find that life again.

At the same time, Lizzie knew that the map would never truly be enough. There was no such thing as a perfect life... but at least it would help her live. At least, as she stood there alone, the magnificent forever above her, she had some hope inspired, somewhere within her. Not all wounds heal, but Lizzie had realised that she could relieve the pain, just a little bit. Tonight, she had seen humanity living their lives, just because they could, and she had seen the stars, and realised that there was more to living than just… trawling through her day to day existence – and through all that, Lizzie realised the most important thing.

Lizzie realised she could live with herself.

There would be hard days, and dark days, and sad days. There would be days when she hated herself and wanted it all to stop. But there would also be days when she'd be so happy, and so joyous, and she'd want those days to stop as well – but not in the same way. She could live for those days.

"Ow shitshitshiit!" cried a voice from the far end of the bridge. _Way to kill the mood_ , Lizzie thought – but not in a miserable way. Instead, she was happy, because people tumbled onto bridges, probably blind-drunk – that was life. _Her_ life was happening, and above all, she felt alive.

Lizzie turned, to see if the stranger needed any help – he was just standing up, brushing the grit off himself, having landed face-first on the concrete.

"I'm not drunk, I promise, I just, I just – tripped over the lamppost."

The stranger walked into the light – and that was the moment her life changed forever.

 _Leo._

He was there – stood in front of her, realised in full, awkward glory, hovering in the light of the lamppost, finishing the dirt-brushing, not quite sure how to stand or what to do with his arms. Leo Akram stood there, the love of her life who didn't actually exist…

But he did.

Because Lizzie had loved him, and she'd brought him into existence. From the deepest, darkest parts of her mind, the most magnificent thing of all had happened. Love had won, bringing Leo Akram into the real world. Lizzie turned to the stars, and she blew them a kiss, thanking them for inspiring so much hope. And she thought of Iris, and Kym, and Ulysses, and she wanted to hug them tight, for showing her the most important thing of all.

"Are you okay?" Leo asked, stepping closer to her. "Yeah, you… you probably are, I'm just – yeah, I'll go."

Suddenly, Lizzie realised she was crying, and quickly she wiped the tear away, not wanting Leo to see her like this (as if he knew who she was).

"You're not okay," Leo corrected himself, coming up close to her. His eyes met hers, then, and for the first time, in the real world, they gazed into each other. Lizzie saw it, she saw the connection forge between them, the unbreakable bond, as their eyes and everything they'd both seen became locked in a magical permanence, their souls becoming part of each other's. She had dreamed of this moment, but nothing she could think of in her head would ever compare to the astonishing power of the two of them in real life.

Because this time, Leo Akram wasn't just someone she'd invented, he wasn't just a story. Leo was a person, he'd lived a life, he was himself, and she had no control over him. She hadn't brought back a fictional construct from her mind – she had brought someone real, close to her, with the power of her love. And as they looked at each other, the world suddenly felt so much more real, the ecstasy of living pulsing electrically around them.

"Sorry," Lizzie shrugged off the fact she was crying. "I'm also not drunk. Well, like, I drank, but like, I'm not… not drunk, I just had the one – yeah, anyway. Yes. Hi."

"Erm, hello," Leo muttered awkwardly, breaking off his gaze, his looks flicking awkwardly between Lizzie and his shoes. Lizzie laughed awkwardly at their little encounter, and at that powerful, mesmerising moment between the two of them. Both of them had recognised the significance behind it, both of them knew, as they looked into each other's eyes, that the person they were looking at, was not just someone random they would meet only once. No… the two of them would meet again, and again – the two of them were not just two random people. "Sorry, I didn't mean to intrude on your moment. I also like to randomly look at stars. And stuff."

Lizzie laughed a painful, stilted laugh. "Yeah. I was just, with some people, I decided I needed some air. Clubbing is… not really my thing. And I guess I was just slightly overwhelmed by… stuff."

"Same," Leo nodded, turning to look out at the stars with Lizzie. The two of them seemed a little less-smaller when they faced the immensities of the universe side-by-side. "I mean, same, I don't do clubbing, and I was also with some people."

The following silence was awkward, but both of them tried to ignore it, by looking out over the bridge. Leo sighed. Lizzie sighed. Conversation, how to make it, who said humans were naturally sociable animals? If that were the case, surely such awkwardness would never have to be endured?

"Sorry, I don't really do… talking, at all," Leo tried to offer an explanation, and Lizzie nodded, telling him it was fine. Reality was an awkward place, nobody was ever going to be perfect.

"Neither," Lizzie shrugged. At their respective confessions, there was a diffusion of tension. Now, neither of them expected anything, neither of them were waiting for any conversation. They were just two people, and at that night, it felt like they were on the edge of everything. Standing, admittedly, quite awkwardly, as Lizzie was too petrified to be casual in any way at all, in case she ended up getting it wrong. As if she could get it wrong, simply by standing and doing nothing.

Why couldn't she just… say what she felt? What was there that prevented Lizzie from saying _exactly_ what was going through her mind, why couldn't she put that connection between her and Leo into words, and for Leo to say exactly the same, and for them to get along like old friends? There just… was. Humans weren't sociable animals, they were difficult animals, too focussed on self-interest to ever be truly open.

"You feel it too, huh?" Leo looked over at her, although Lizzie didn't look at him. "As if there's stuff you need to say, but you can't… just because… you can't."  
Stuff that she needed to say to him that transcended all logic and scientific thought? Yeah. And she didn't think there would ever be a way of putting those emotions into words.

"Yep," was all she said. Simple, one word – but something powerful enough to reaffirm what they were both thinking about each other. Small words that could reaffirm the impossible. "And there are people who _expect_ you to put it into words, but you have no idea?"

"All the time."

"And you'd much rather just… be quiet?"

Leo laughed, and then looked longingly out in front of him at the city, shrouded in the darkness, and yet so alive. "Yep. This is my idea of heaven."

He paused. "Although I would kill for some better social skills."

And Lizzie knew it, then. She was truly, properly, falling love.

She turned to him, and he was still looking at her. Their eyes met again, and it was as if they were meeting for the first time. There was that… purity between the two of them, them seeing each other as they truly were. When they were talking, the cover of society masked both of them, restricting their true selves from showing. It was only in those moments of silence both felt comfortable – and that was when Lizzie knew she'd met Leo. Someone who could be in that silence, and who could understand it and feel something from it – who could look at silence and see the beauty and tranquillity of the world hiding behind it.

There was something truly mesmerising about meeting that person

"Hello," he waved awkwardly. "My name is Leo, I'm a professional awkward human, and I just… do awkward things."

"O.M.F.G, LIZZNORA, THERE YOU AREEEE OH SHit I've fallen over hold on."

Apparently, Lizzie and Leo's first meetings always ended with a drunk Kym. This time, she came stumbling across the bridge, her heels proving rather awkward to walk in. Iris trailed close behind her, Ulysses prowling miserably behind. Clearly, babysitting two very drunk women was not the cat's idea of fun.

"Heeeeeeeeeeeeey," Iris mumbled, tripping over, Lizzie catching her before she hit the ground in drunken collapse.

"Oh, god, okay, hold on," Lizzie steadied herself. "Sorry." She muttered to Leo.

"It's fine," he reassured her, laughing as Lizzie took Iris in her arm, and hobbled over to provide balance before Kym accidentally fell over the side of the bridge.

"Oh my god," Lizzie suddenly realised, and backtracked uneasily, her tongue just tying itself in knots. "My name – my name's not Lizznora, can I just… yeah, not Lizznora."

That really would have killed the magic. Except, that was probably the moment Leo revealed his second-cousin who went by the name of Lizznora.

"I mean, no offence to anyone with the name Lizznora," Lizzie elaborated, just to cover her tracks in case Lizznora Akram existed.

"I wouldn't mind if your name was Lizznora," Leo said, before he cringed at his own choice of words, scrunching up his face as if he'd eaten something disgustingly sour.

Lizzie looked at Iris and Kym, and then over at Leo, and then at Kym as she lurched forward and pushed herself up against Leo.

"You're _gorgeous_ ," Kym placed her hands on his chest and sighed a forlorn sigh. Completely staggered, Leo looked down at Kym, suddenly realising that Kym had dozed off in the brief seconds of her being pressed against his body – and was now drooling onto his jacket. It was at this moment that Lizzie realised she was going to have to do something – and fast.

"LIZ I KNOW ALL THESE STARS!" Iris screamed off the bridge, and then started listing the names of everything shining brightly above their heads at the top of her lungs.

" _Hello_ ," Ulysses gazed up at Leo, fire and passion burning in those amber eyes. Thankfully, Leo did not notice the talking feline.

Yep – Lizzie _really_ had to do something.

"Erm," Lizzie attempted to prise Kym off Leo, taking the full brunt of the next wave of drool. "I'm – yeah, I should probably go. I think I need to get these two home."

"Can I…?" Leo held up his phone, and Lizzie's heart began to race.

"Oh, er, yeah, sure!" Lizzie fumbled for her phone, trying desperately not to drop it. Thankfully, she managed to safely exchange numbers with Leo Akram, with very few mishaps, barring the accidental typing of a 4 instead of a 3.

"I should probably go," Leo smiled at the odd four, and then walked away, turning back a few times to look at Lizzie, while completely panicking that he'd said something stupid and potentially ruined everything. For there had been that moment between the two of them, that gazing of eyes, that… ecstatic magic – something that he desperately wanted again. Because for once, he wasn't feeling something he'd spent so much time feeling.

For once, he didn't feel alone.

And as Lizzie met his eyes, she felt the same.

Then Leo disappeared into the night-time haze of the city, and she was left with Iris laughing strangely maniacally off the front of the bridge, and Kym leaning against her, whispering affectionate words in Lizzie's ear.

" _You, Lizz-D, are the bestest, most bestinatous bestust friend to ever be best. You know that? YOU KNOW –_ oops sorry shouting _."_

After clutching her eardrums in pain, Lizzie realised that hopefully, she would never feel alone, ever again.

* * *

Iris had never experienced a headache like it.

It pounded violently behind her eyes, forcing itself to the front of her temple, the cruel, sadistic, aftershock of alcohol hammering inside her head. Even the soft feather pillow beneath her head felt hard as iron, and when she turned over she felt it thump against her skull. When Iris tried to open her mouth, she realised she was hideously dehydrated, the inside of her mouth dryer than industrial-grade sandpaper, strings of saliva hanging sullenly from her teeth. Her eyes were glued shut, by sleep-dust stronger than superglue – and when eventually she gripped her sticky eyelids and forced them open, the light streaming in from the window stung, sending a heavy impulse to the back of her head, as if telling the headache to be even angrier than before.

How much had she drunk? Probably quite a lot, judging by her horrific state in the bed. She was still in the clothes from the night before, but they were clasped to her by a thick layer of sweat. In fact, she probably reeked of alcohol all over, considering she could smell the faint whiff from the bedsheets.

It was only then Iris realised the reason behind her awakening. Ulysses, in his true feline ways, had slunk into the room, and he was sat in front of her on the far end of the bed, looking like the sweet, innocent cat he wasn't.

" _Iris_ ," he whispered to her, gently rousing her with his paw. " _Iris!"_

"Wh… wht… whtfgrt," she tried to speak, but considering her blood was probably completely diluted by alcohol, it proved a marked struggle.

"Shush darling," he reassured her. "It's November 2017."

"Thnk… th…."

"It's fine. Though you must awake! We have an important visitor."

"Whtev," she lolled her head back to the bed, and snoozed off to the better place she was in before.

"Normally, I would be 100% beside you," Ulysses continued. "But today – well, I fear that this may be quite pressing. For you especially."

There was no response from Iris.

"IRIS!" Ulysses growled.

"FIIIIIIIINE," Iris bellowed, launching herself up at a speed which sent Ulysses diving for cover, and shook up the insides of her head, causing the brutality to rage louder than it already was. She winced at the agony, clutching her head and sitting back, waiting until the pain subsided.

* * *

"Apologies for the rude awakening," Ulysses guided Iris over to the door. "But this is important."

"Can't we do this when I'm like… actually alive," Iris blundered aimlessly out of the bedroom, her eyes half closed as to avoid looking at as much light as possible. Her hair was an untidy straggle, and she realised that she probably should've showered and changed. But Ulysses had proclaimed the importance of the situation, and so she had little choice. Lizzie was there, hovering in the kitchen. Kym sat at the kitchen table, looking less glamorous than usual – her eyes were sunken, she was make-up free, and she looked as if she were ready to be sick at any moment. Judging by the bucket beside her, Iris expected that vomit was likely.

And then Iris saw the _other_ person sat at their kitchen table, and suddenly, the light seemed brighter than it had before.

" _You?!_ " Iris exclaimed, slumping onto the sofa, because in her current state, she just couldn't be bothered to deal with what was about to happen. She had no idea how the person at the table had found her, all she knew was that a great can of worms was about to be opened.

"Wait?" Lizzie looked at the woman at the table, and then over at Iris. "You and Jada know each other?"

Iris, in mystified, yet head-achey confusion, sat up, suddenly realising that the can of worms was larger than she'd even expected. "More to the point, _you_ and Jada know each other?"

The woman sat opposite Kym at the kitchen table was none other than Jada Haruno – hunter of Artemis, who Lizzie had met back on New Earth. They'd taken Aldora Bagget down together… they'd solved the mystery of the faceless children.

To Iris, the woman sat at the kitchen table was none other than… well, she wasn't actually sure of her name. She was just the random women she'd met in the club the night before, the woman she'd been kissing quite… intimately.

"We met last night," Iris muttered sheepishly, noticing Jada looking down at the table in exactly the same sheepish way. Suddenly, it all fell into place for Lizzie - Jada had been the woman Iris had been with at the club, she just hadn't realised, considering they were sort of… on each other. "So, hold on, you're not from now?"

"No," Jada held up her wrist, upon which was some kind of… teleportation bracelet.

"Oh, wonderful," Iris muttered. "Only me."

"Something is happening," Jada explained, with a typical ominousness that just caused Iris to grumble and slump back down onto the sofa. She could see Lizzie in the kitchen trying not to laugh at Iris irritableness, before turning back to Jada.

"Okay, hold on babes, I am lost a.f." Kym's unusual silence until this point was most likely caused by that horrific hangover she was nursing – a hangover that seemed to have manifested itself in a similar force to Iris'. "How do you two know her, but not know that you both know her?"

"I met Lizzie a while ago in unrelated circumstances," Jada said. "I met Iris last night when recceing the current situation –"

Iris gawked and then grinned. " _That_ was only the recce?"

Jada tried to hide her embarrassment and reluctance to continue by putting on a steely expression, which Iris just found all-the-more adorable. Meanwhile, Lizzie shuffled a bit further to the corner, not sure whether she was interrupting something, and Kym continued her spell of out-of-character silence.

"Can we please get down to business?" Jada looked around at all of them, causing Kym to look up slightly, Lizzie to move further forward, and Iris to hoist an interested expression on her face, even though she didn't really care about the situation at all, and was just interested in playing along in some kind of one-sided roleplay.

"What do you know of the Qlerics?" Jada said.

Lizzie could remember them well – a group of intergalactic clerics, the high-ranking members of a highly regimented, corrupt church. They also took the strange form of bulbous, frog-like creatures. Most recently, in fact, during an encounter involving a blazing floor, a broken window, and a TARDIS carrying a chandelier carrying a chair carrying Iris.

"Isn't he that guy on the telly?" Kym asked, which was met by an incredulous look from Jada, who then looked at Lizzie with nothing short of a look of despair.

"Yeah… we met them a few times," Lizzie stepped in. And she'd hated them, each of those times. They ruled worlds with their religious power, they took decent, good people for everything they had. They banned people from marrying who they loved, and they persecuted anyone who dared love anyone the Qlerics didn't deem 'appropriate'.

Jada's look turned icy. "Then you will understand they are a highly corrupt, highly authoritarian, and highly prejudiced, group."

Iris groaned, deliberately being difficult and over-the-top. "Yeah, the church are evil, we all know that."

"I got banned from church when I was a kid," Kym mused, gazing vacantly out of the window. "I stole the biscuit things they have at communion."

"… right." Iris scooped herself up and meandered haphazardly into the kitchen, where she began to pour herself a bowl of cereal.

Kym continued, a nostalgic smile on her face, a she reminisced over the good old days. "And I drank all the wine. I thought it was Ribena."

"As I was saying," Jada interrupted them before they wandered off into even inaner territory. "The Qlerics are active on Earth. They plan to evangelise the planet."

Iris took a bite of the cereal, then looked at it with the same hungover look of contempt she'd given the church. Lizzie, meanwhile, was more concerned about the forced conversion of every human to a specific religion.

"How would they do such a terrible thing?" asked Ulysses, uncurling himself from Lizzie's feet at the sheer horror of the thought.

"They have a mind-control device," Jada explained, the very thought of it making her squirm. She'd seen the effects of the J35us-90, and the way it could immobilise whole worlds, oppressing them with the faith of the Qlerics. "They plan on activating it. However, thankfully, the device is easy to block. You simply have to… communicate to everyone on Earth that the Qlerics are telling lies."

That was perhaps more concerning than Jada realised. "How do we do it?" Lizzie asked.

"We have no choice but to wait. The device has to be activated on the planet's surface – when it begins, I'll teleport us there. Lizzie – you understand humanity, so it will be your job to induce the thought."

 _Wonderful_. Having the fate of everyone's free-will on her mind wasn't exactly a comforting thought.

"I will return when it's time."

With that, Jada stood up and put on her coat, before she left. Iris side-lined her cereal, Kym was dozing on the table, Ulysses was watching a bird with interrogative eyes – and Lizzie looked around her as they all just returned to their lives. People were funny, even in the fate of impending doom they all just… carried on as if nothing was about to happen.

Suddenly, it looked as if Iris had suddenly realised something very, very important, and she rushed off. Lizzie was not surprised –

* * *

"Jada!" Iris called down the stairs. Jada did not stop – she kept her head down, looking at the floor. Iris could understand.

But then, she turned around. "Yes?"

"You can't just… ignore what happened?" Iris protested, ploughing down the stairs at a speed too fast for the current state of her head. However, she did not care. She had experienced last night, and it was magical – and she couldn't just let Jada go.

"Yes, Iris. I can."

And Jada truly believed that she could. After all – Iris had just… left. Jada would never expect someone like that to ever show any interest again – and so the fact Iris was meeting her on the grubby little staircase stinking of alcohol and looking a complete wreck, lead to slightly mixed signals. Mixed signals that Jada did not need.

"But we…?"

"Yes?" Jada said it as if she were asking what the point was – for it seemed lost on her that there ever was any point to it, when Iris had just decided to run.

"Look, yes, I left, I'm sorry, I'm a bitch, can we just put it all behind us?" Iris gave Jada her best puppy-dog eyes, knowing that within seconds, Jada would be in her arms again. Those eyes, her charm – they always worked, and she was confident they would work again.

Jada, however, just looked bemused. "No. You can't just say that and expect me to jump into bed with you. I don't have time for games, Iris."

"Look, okay…," Iris hesitated, not at all sure how to go about saying what needed to be said. Opening her heart to people was hard – that was, after all, the whole reason she ran away. It was either running, or masking the actual talking stuff with jokes, and she didn't think that would go down well. "I was… scared."

"You're not the first person, and you won't be the last."

"Just give me a bloody chance!" Iris protested. "I can't be perfect."

Jada looked at the girl in front of her. That was all she was. A girl, who the real world was waiting for – a real world that Iris seemed willing to forget about until it suited her.

"Time to grow up, Iris. It was nice meeting you."

Remorselessly, Jada turned and walked away.

Iris tried to find words to shout after her, words to communicate how she felt, but there weren't any. "You're not perfect either!" was all she could find, but she wasn't even sure if she said it loud enough to be properly heard. Because she was so shocked – and it wasn't even as if their conversation had been long, or overly angry. In fact – that was the crushing thing – for once, there was nothing Iris could shout, nothing she could scream at Jada, to make her listen.

In fact, she would be half-tempted to say Jada was being no better than her, but Iris couldn't bring herself to think it, when it would just be hypocrisy at its finest.

Iris backed away, back up the stairs – as if she were backing away from herself, knowing that something had to change.

* * *

"And like, someone will assume something about you, and you just go along with it because you can't say otherwise?"

"Yep," Lizzie laughed. Her all the time. And she could see the visible relief on Leo Akram's face, when he realised he wasn't alone in suffering such an awkward fate.

The two of them were sat in a nice little café, in comfy arm-chairs on either side of a coffee table. It reminded Lizzie of the café/bookshop she'd been working in, with its cramped shelves of books and other miscellaneous ornaments, and the paintings hung on the walls, and that warm cosiness that seemed to envelope you. It seemed even more prevalent, as the rain was lashing down outside. Lizzie and Leo looked out on the street, watching the passers-by, fumbling with umbrellas, dashing from place to place, whipping up their raincoat collars. They had been out together a few times since the bridge incident - various bars (quiet ones, on their own), and when they realised that it wasn't exactly their _thing_ , smallish cafés.

It made Lizzie feel even safer, wrapped up in the arms of that cosy café, on the verge of something bleak, dark, and miserable. And as she watched Leo opposite her, she realised how on-the-verge she was with him as well. They were so close to something, even now, and yet… yet it wasn't there. It felt as if there was something they both needed to talk about, but neither of them had. Lizzie was worried that the question was coming, and she could feel her heart pounding, her palms sweating, knowing that it was inevitably going to fall on them.

Leo was like her. Awkward and clumsy with words, and with the social skills of... well. With the social skills of a Lizzie Darwin. Except, unlike Lizzie, whose awkwardness was just stupid, Leo's was funny. _He_ was funny, and charming, in his own weird way. He was an artist, who lived not far across town, working on comics at the moment, but always drifting from job to job, picking up anything that needed to be painted. And this Leo... he was his own Leo. Not like the one drawn straight out of her head, what might have been just a crude, cardboard cutout in comparison to the real object. This Leo had a family, proper likes and dislikes. Hatreds and passions, issues and problems - he had a life.

And Lizzie knew it was going to happen – that unavoidable question, that was inevitably going to rise at some point or another. The two of them had spotted something in each other, not long after they'd first met. Perhaps a sort of… recognition of their struggles, and she knew that one day, they would have to discuss it.

"Okay, look," Leo began, and Lizzie instantly knew now was the moment. And she wanted to back out of it, _it_ being the last thing that she wanted to talk about – but Leo's insistence at proceeding was clear. "I… I'm… not great at relationships, because…"

He gestured to his head, deliberately avoiding saying the words. It was not an easy thing to talk about.

"Yeah… same, kind of, haha," Lizzie muttered, looking down at her shoes and then out the window at life passing by. An escape from having to face what was going on in her head. Perhaps that was why she didn't want to talk about it with Leo. It meant _it_ was real, and she'd still barely accepted it. Half the time, she wasn't even sure if she _had_ accepted it.

"I guess, that if we… each understand what the other is going through…?" Leo suggested, broaching the subject carefully.

"Yeah, Leo, I'm… I'm not great at talking about it, so…"

"It helps, you know. And I can see it… I can see you want to talk about it, you just… can't find the words."

Lizzie was almost disconcerted with the amount Leo understood her. She wanted nothing more for everyone to just understand – but she knew that she'd have to find the words, and she knew how hard that would be. Lizzie wanted people to understand, to just… get how it felt, with a look, with a quick glance. And she knew that that was just as impossible as finding the words. Except… when they'd stood on that bridge, with the stars above them, Leo had gazed into her eyes and there had been that moment of mutual knowing. Lizzie wanted that moment back.

Now, she sat there, as far back in her chair as possible, her eyes refusing to meet his. The connection broken, that moment lost forever.

"I know you're scared, Lizzie. Talking about this stuff, it helps." Leo continued… because he could see it… she could see her bottling stuff up, desperate to just… get it off her chest, to have someone to listen to her. " _I_ need someone to talk to about it."

But Lizzie continued to suffer in silence.

"Lizzie… I am lost, and I think… I think I need you to help me through it."

And as Leo looked at her, he was so confused. Why was she suddenly being so cold, so reluctant? She couldn't even look at him, her eyes were wandering to every other part of the room.

"Lizzie… why won't you talk to me about this?"

And then she snapped at him, the sum of all his words just getting a bit too much to bear.

"Because believe it or not, Leo, you're not the first person to ever suffer from anxiety, or depression."

A silence fell, partly because Lizzie was so shocked and taken aback by her own words. Leo looked up at her, bemused towards this new side of Lizzie.

"I thought you understood," he said, looking out the window himself. "I thought you knew what it was like."

"I do, Leo," and for once, she dared to look him in the eyes, because it was the truth, and she needed him to know it. "I've suffered from depression, and perhaps it's just made me bitter. Perhaps it's changed me and made me into something I really, really hate, I don't know. Perhaps I might as well not bother coping, because me coping is just me being a horrible person."

She paused, taking in deep breaths, trying to calm herself down. But the tirade kept coming out of nothing, perhaps, but partly self-loathing, and partly anger towards Leo.

"But seriously – if you are looking for a therapist, I can't do this. I can't tell you everything is going to be fine, because I don't know. And maybe you're going to hate me but that's… that's just how I feel."

And another spell of silence followed, as Leo began to grasp Lizzie's words.

"… right. Well, if that's… that's how you feel," he whispered, his voice choked.

It was how Lizzie felt – and she wouldn't let it slide, she wouldn't apologise to him. She could stand by him, without a shadow of a doubt, she could support him – but there was no way she could babysit him, she couldn't have him reliant on her, when she could barely be reliant on herself. It wasn't fair on him, and above all, it wasn't fair on herself. She wouldn't just be his… vehicle to a recovery.

"I think, Lizzie, you're scared," Leo began, as if scrambling for some justification. "You're scared of getting close to someone, scared of… trusting them."

"I am terrified," she admitted, knowing that placing her trust in someone else was one of the things she found the hardest. "But Leo… if you want to do this, I can't just be your rock."

"We would support each other, Lizzie. That's what people in relationships do."

"Then…," she thought about it. "Perhaps I'm not strong enough for a relationship, who knows."

She most certainly didn't. In fact, she wasn't sure she knew herself anymore.

"Look," she grabbed her stuff, and then stood up to leave. Leo made to say something, trying to find some words to use, but he couldn't. "I can't do this," Lizzie admitted, and she knew it was the truth. "I… I need to go. I'm sorry."

Lizzie made her way out into the rain, and Leo watched her from the windows as she walked quickly into the mist and the drizzle, before becoming lost in the misery of the outside world.

* * *

"The truth about love, mist-tress," K9 sat on the sand, a pair of aviator sunglasses balanced precariously in his visual receptors (supposedly high quantities of sunlight could lead to distortion in the pixels). Iris had also placed a sunhat on his head, for no reason other than that it made her laugh. Ulysses was curled up in K9's shade, dozing in the mid-day sunshine.

Paradise 5 went by that name, simply because it was renowned for being a… well, paradise. It wasn't anymore, of course – it had become a location modified for tourism and money-making. Once upon a time, it had been a planet of beautiful beaches, jungles, tropics – now it was industrialised with shops selling tat, and buckets and spades, and piers. Of course, the beaches were what everyone came for, but above all, Paradise 5 was a prime holidaying location, with hotels, restaurants, amusement arcades, theme parks – stretching over the entire planet.

Lizzie, as an Earthling, would liken the transformation to a remote Bahamian outpost being turned into a British seaside town, with fish and chips. Except, there was no denying, Paradise 5 certainly had heart, and that was why the Doctor, Cioné, Lizzie, and Iris, along with K9 and Ulysses, had decided to come on a bit of a mini-break. Lizzie, who normally hated beaches, was willing to come along, still feeling dejected over Leo. Iris, meanwhile, was still hacked off about Jada. And so there they were, a family, a little more miserable than usual, upon the beach.

"Weirdly quiet," Cioné had muttered, through the mouthful of a chip, when they'd set up their deckchairs and rug on the beach. The sun was beating down on them, and they were all lathered in sun-cream – especially Lizzie, who, with a complexion the same colour as milk, was required to use rather a lot.

"Suspiciously so…," said the Doctor, as he plonked himself down in a deckchair, and erected his sunhat above his eyes, before he began to doze off to sleep. Lizzie took the other deckchair, where she read her book, while Cioné and Iris were embracing their inner children, and building sandcastles (because why not?).

"Mum, Dad, please be quiet while K9 laments the truth about why we all truly die alone, with no hope at all," Iris sat with the bucket beside her, trying, and failing, to make her first construction. It was not going well.

K9 seemed to finish running his calculations. "Love originates from the human brain as a release of certain chemicals. Frequently this is linked with sexual attraction, occurring –"

"Thanks K9," Iris shut the dog up, not sure that she wanted to hear anymore from whatever robot-dog-google K9 used.

"You are welcome, mistress Iris."

Lizzie had long since decided that no matter who Iris consulted, she was not going to find any answers to her questions. The truth behind love. Lizzie had realised that the truth was, it never works out as it does in dreams. One can dream, one can write about a happy-ever-after, but getting there is much harder than one can ever comprehend. Since Lizzie had come to accept that as truth, she had abandoned the idea of Leo Akram. And she felt freer because of it. Occasionally she felt worse, but most of the time, she was certain that that was just a consequence of the freedom from her misguided optimism.

"I've just made a very, very bad mistake," the Doctor gulped, using the voice he uses whenever the universe is about to come to an end. He was looking past the three of them, at something going on down the far end of the beach.

"Oh yes?" Cioné glanced up at him from the wreck of her sandcastles.

The Doctor, meanwhile, was glancing around urgently, a sheepish look on his face. He seemed to be looking for an exit. "This, er, isn't the planet I promised to take you all."

The three of them looked up at him. "Well, where are we?" Iris asked.

"It's, a, er…," the Doctor stuttered, trying to find the words that would explain their fate.

"Go on!" Cioné hurried him up.

"A, erm, colony," the Doctor explained.

Cioné's befuddled look explained what all of them were thinking. "What do you mean, a 'colony'?"

"I mean," the Doctor repeated. "It's a… _colony_."

They noticed the Doctor subtly pointing over at something, as if he were trying not to be noticed. When the three ladies turned to look, all in sync, their jaws dropped.

Six people, playing volleyball.

And they were stark, bollock, naked.

It was at this most unfortunate moment, Ulysses F. B. Higgensdale woke up, and he turned his whiskers to the nudist cause visible at the end of the beach. " _Hello_ ," he purred.

Meanwhile, Iris raised her sunglasses, while the Doctor was already on his feet and folding up the deckchairs. Lizzie just sat, paralysed in a state of pure shock.

"How do we leave?" asked Cioné.

"We left the TARDIS on the other side of the beach," Lizzie regained herself, shutting her book and preparing to leave.

"I think we should stick around," Iris laughed, while the three others seemed insistent on leaving. Ulysses was on Iris' side, while K9 sat around vacantly in the sand. Within a flash, their stuff was ready, and they made to leave. Grumbling, Iris sat up and began to follow them. It was at that moment they all had to stop and turn around, realising that K9 was 'beached', as it were – his wheels couldn't trundle over the sand.

"Iris, pick him up," the Doctor instructed, leaving Iris to miserably try and scoop up K9, carrying him uncomfortably under one arm. Then, the Doctor led the way, Cioné trailing behind him, with Lizzie and Iris bringing up the rear – a turn of phrase more appropriate for their current situation than any other.

"The truth behind love," Iris gestured around her with her non-K9 carrying arm. "Being so miserable that you end up accidentally sunbathing on a nudist beach."

"It's not… that miserable," Lizzie muttered to herself, waving awkwardly at a couple playing chess. "Not the nudity thing, I mean, the miserableness, it's not that miserable."

"… right," Iris murmured, before laughing at Lizzie's slight… communication mishap. "If you say so…"

Lizzie hesitated… what did Iris mean by that? Although, she was quite certain.

"Me and Leo, turns out, are…perhaps too similar," Lizzie stated.

"Wroooong," Iris groaned, sick and tired of Lizzie's self-pity. "You two are perfect for each other, just get on with it, would you?"

Lizzie didn't think they were as perfect for each other as everyone might think. "He wants different things to me –"

"– you're completely terrified of any close relationship because it means opening up," Iris interrupted sarcastically.

"– that as well," Lizzie acknowledged. "Also…," and this was something she hadn't yet told anybody, but it was true, and she could feel the pressure hanging over her. "He's a guy," Lizzie said. "And like… I always feel judged when I go for like, guys."

The two of them glanced ahead, to see the TARDIS glimmering in the distance. _The distance_ – they still had a while to trek.

"The biphobia train in the universe is strong, Lizzie," Iris declared. "Don't listen to it."

That was much easier said than done – but it was much easier to look past than Lizzie's other qualms. She still wasn't sure whether she'd be able to cope in a relationship with Leo.

"Leo is an… intimate guy, and I am not," Lizzie admitted, knowing that their polarising views on being close to someone would not be easy. "An intimate person, I mean. And not a guy as well."

"Exactly," Iris shrugged, as if it were the most casual thing in the world. "You stop him being so needy, he makes you stop bottling it all up."

When Iris said it, she made it sound so simple – simple enough that Lizzie perhaps found a faint glimmer of optimism in it. She knew it would not be so simple – but Lizzie also knew that Iris was right. They were good for each other… they could be, if Lizzie was brave enough to stick at it. Above all, if Leo was brave enough too.

"Well, if Leo and I can be together, so can you and Jada –"

Iris began to protest, having fully buried Jada in her memories. Sort of. Half. "Don't change the subject."

Lizzie had just confessed more of her inner thoughts then, than she had to anyone else in the last god-knows-how-long. It was Iris' turn. "You were… very intimate, that time…"

"Yes, and I ruined it, because I ran away, _because_ I am one hell of a commitment-phobe." Iris set her sights firmly on the TARDIS, so she didn't have to look at Lizzie being so… interrogative.

"Iris…," Lizzie looked straight at her, and with total honesty and truth, said "Don't get lack of self-confidence mixed up with being a commitment-phobe."

Iris stopped, K9 nearly falling out of her arms as she did (K9 was feeling heavier, and causing their walk to feel rather ponderous). But Lizzie's words hit home, they… touched on something Iris had perhaps been trying to keep hidden. Everyone seemed to think that people like Iris were bursting with self-confidence… but often it was the loudest people that doubted themselves the most, and Iris had learned that first hand. Masking her insecurities with noise and humour.

"You think?" Iris asked Lizzie, needing her to say it again, just to reassure her.

"Yes," Lizzie said simply. And that was enough. Iris was young, she was nervous, only just coming out into the big wide universe. Mistakes were meant to happen, it was only natural she should have made them then – and even more natural that she'd made them out of fear.  
Iris dropped K9 onto the sand, and as she listened to him land with a soft thud, she hugged Lizzie. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Lizzie smiled, aware that they probably looked completely ridiculous, two clothed people hugging in the centre of a nudist beach.

The TARDIS was not far away, now – but perhaps it would not be so open as that strange conversation on that naked beach.

* * *

 **Two Days Later**

"Hey."

Jada Haruno was in a coffee bar, somewhere in that rainy Earthen city of London. Her laptop was open in front of her, as she continued to track the Qleric's latest scheme to brainwash the planet. It wouldn't be long – she knew that. They had bided their time long enough, and Jada was ready to take them down, no matter what the cost. Enough people had been oppressed by them, and she was determined to prevent that from happening.

She heard the voice beside her – a familiar voice, and she knew it straight away. Jada had been thinking about the voice a lot.

"How'd you find me?" Jada turned to Iris, who'd sat herself down beside her, before glancing nervously around her as if she were expecting something terrible to happen.

"The TARDIS. I kind of tracked you here. Sorry."

Even though Iris wasn't sorry at all, she was just happy to have found Jada.

"Look. I was being childish. I am young. And also probably older than you, which is weird, but emotionally, I am young."

Jada turned to look at her laptop, simply because it was easier than having to listen to Iris' words. That was her, assuming that Iris had words to say. She wasn't even sure what to say. But she braced herself, knowing that the conversation she was about to have, the speech she was about to make, was going to have to be the greatest set of words she'd ever strung together in all her life.

"Please, give me a chance."

A bit rubbish, but it was a good starting point.

"I ran, because I was scared. I've not done this before, I doubted myself. I'm good at that, see."

Perhaps the reason Iris had doubted herself, was because… well, she'd only just truly confessed it to herself, but she was in love. She thought Jada Haruno was the most beautiful woman she'd ever laid eyes on, and she wanted to be with her, and Iris was determined to do anything to make that happen.

Iris paused, not sure whether to say what she wanted to say. But she did, because perhaps it was what she needed to say.

"I know you're scared too."

And that was okay. Fear was normal, just another part of life. It made Jada hesitate.

"You're a bit like Lizzie, you find relationships hard. Trust and all that. Solitary people who find being together difficult."

Jada turned to her, and for the first time since their conversation on that grubby little staircase, their eyes met.

"Please, Jada. I want to understand."

"I am an independent person," Jada proceeded straight away, before bending the lid of her laptop so she was fully focused on Iris. Her heart was pounding – both of their hearts (three hearts in total), were pounding, as they both knew how they truly felt. They just needed to realise it. "And… I am withdrawn. I have spent my life alone, and so I am… used to that. And I hope… that you will understand that when I say, I can't be with you, it's because I would be no good for you."

Iris was crying, now – she could feel Jada slipping away from her.

"You are a wonderful person, Iris. You deserve better than that."

"Please," Iris put her hand on Jada's, but Jada pulled it away, as if it would make what she was saying any easier for her to comprehend. Jada looked Iris in the eye – because at least she had the decency to do what she was about to do, with honesty, and with truth.

"But," Jada said, her icy features dissolving. "I can't ignore how I feel."

And she placed her palm on the side of Iris' face, and leaned in, and kissed her. Iris kissed her back, and the sun streamed in the windows around them both, illuminating them in the happiest, warmest light. That kiss, its nervousness, its slight awkwardness – that didn't matter, because the kiss still felt perfect. It was both of them, opening up who they truly were, Iris and her self-doubt, and Jada and her loneliness. That stuff, it didn't go away, but it was there, out in the open, for both of them to deal with. Together.

Together… and speaking of which, Iris had some thoughts of her own.

"Marry me, Jada."

Jada instantly backed away, not out of unwillingness, merely out of complete disbelief. When Iris mused back over it, perhaps it was a little bit impulsive, a little bit crazy. Perhaps it would all go terribly wrong – but they were young! Reckless decisions, that was what they were meant to be doing. Jada hesitated, completely uncertain of what to say, the shock draining her of all rational thinking – of all thinking in general. In her surprise, she didn't flounder, she didn't stumble, she merely sat back in complete silence. But she had to say something.

So, she spoke from her heart, with her brain having no idea the word about to leave her.

"Yes."

They both laughed, and then kissed again, and then laughed – simply because it was probably a very stupid decision, and they were both in hysterics at their recklessness. But they were captivated in the moment, and at that moment, all that mattered was each other.

* * *

They met at Leo's flat. It was small, just him living there… but it was bursting with life. A life, perhaps, that Leo Akram didn't feel. But Lizzie glanced at the photos on the mantelpiece, of Leo's family, of his friends. Of long-gone days, and memories to be treasured. There were posters on the wall, and all sorts of nerdy film and comic-book stuff on the bookshelves that Lizzie didn't really understand or care about. Except – she did care. She cared because Leo cared.

"Star Wars fan, huh?" Lizzie asked, as he showed her in.

"Yep," Leo muttered. "You like sci-fi?"

"Not really," Lizzie admitted, nervously sitting down as Leo allowed her to. "I think it only works when it's told around the characters."

A bit like life, Lizzie had often thought. That revolved around the people, and so anything that didn't always confused her. Ironic really, considering half the time, people confused her more than anything else. Especially during moments like her current situation – when she was sitting opposite someone, with an entire script planned in her head. Except, when arriving at the situation, and assessed what was going on, the script was useless. One couldn't script life, it seemed, it just… happened, randomly and impulsively.

That was why Lizzie had always found life so hard to cope with.

"Look, I'm sorry… I shouldn't have had a go at you," Lizzie said. Personal conversations… she always found them slightly stilted, as if she rarely put any meaning behind any words. She always just said what she said, for the person she was talking to.

Lizzie stopped herself, knowing that she couldn't do that for Leo. Leo deserved her… the truthful her. Not the stock-Lizzie she rolled out whenever she talked to any random person, because she wanted Leo to be so much more than just a random person.

"Well… I kind of am," she muttered, realising that it might not be what Leo wanted to hear, but it was what she needed to tell him – especially if there was any chance of anything happening. "I shouldn't have snapped, and yes, I am a bit too reserved, perhaps. But… I can't take back what I said about not being your therapist. Because I can't, and… I won't try to be. I'll stand with you, all the time. But if all you want is a counsellor, then… that's not me."

She had told him, now. Leo would have to try and live with that. Lizzie looked at him, and saw him for the beautiful person that he was. She wanted to love that person, she wanted to support him, but she did not want to be used by him.

"Look," Leo said, because he had words of his own to say to Lizzie. "I'm clingy, I'm needy, I know – I don't want sympathy. I am pitifully socially cringeworthy, and maybe I need sympathy for that."

Lizzie laughed, and Leo smiled to himself. Seeing her laugh in that… sheepish, reserved way she did, it just made him happy.

"We can do it together. Living," Leo said, and he meant it. He wouldn't be reliant on her, he wouldn't use her. They would do it all together. Lizzie could help him, he would help her. Perhaps, they would bring out the best in each other.

"I'd like that," Lizzie smiled at him, as Leo took her hands and held them close. "I mean, look… I'll trust you, I'm sorry I didn't before. Trust, and stuff, it's… hard."

"I get it," Leo scooched up on the sofa next to Lizzie, pulling her close. He was going to listen to her. He was going to wait for her, with an infinite amount of patience, until eventually, she found the words she needed.

That was when she looked up at him, and she felt a flicker of realisation. One might call it acceptance, but Lizzie wasn't sure. Acknowledgement, perhaps. Or maybe it wasn't acceptance. Maybe to accept something, you didn't truly have to understand it. Perhaps she'd been getting it wrong. But now, Lizzie could speak with confidence – and it only occurred to her, that when they met, she hadn't introduced herself properly to him.

"Hello. My name is Lizzie Darwin, and I have depression."

Perhaps she didn't understand it, but now, she was willing to talk. Wiling to be open, without being reserved, without being awkward. She was willing to be honest and truthful. She was sad, and she didn't want to suffer that alone any longer. A lot of her life, she'd been so alone, but she didn't feel that any longer, as she lay back on Leo's suffer, the two of them nestled close together. She'd been so reluctant to trust, but now, Leo had heard words from her, more open and more honest words than she'd offered to anybody else.

And Lizzie glanced into his eyes, and there was that look between them, that connection, that understanding. Something so strong it had taken her attention away from the stars, because she'd discovered something even more beautiful.

For the first time in her life, Lizzie Darwin was willing to love.

* * *

The morning of the wedding came.

Due to the impulsiveness of the occasion, there weren't going to be many guests. But that was what Iris and Jada both wanted – no fuss, just to have that… unity. As long as they were together, it didn't matter how many people were there. At least, the people who mattered were there. And they waited, in the registry office, for the ceremony to begin. The Doctor and Cioné were there, of course, as parents of the bride. They'd been, admittedly, slightly taken aback when Iris told her she was getting married. But, they had decided to support her. Lizzie was there, with Leo, of course. Kym had come along, in the largest set of heels Lizzie had seen her in so far. Ulysses sat upright on a seat, a white bowtie around his neck, contrasting against the inky black of his silky fur.

However, the happy couple were yet to be seen. They thought they'd been about to appear, when they'd heard the doors to the registry office smash open.

"Oi, oi, Lizzie!" Chasya Tomkins, one of Jada's fellow hunters of Artemis, strode into the room, her bow slung across her leather jacket. Neither Chasya, nor Fortuna, seemed dressed in wedding-like attire. In fact, they both seemed as if they were going to continue their usual business fighting injustice across the universe. Fortuna smiled at them, as they took up the seats on Jada's side of the office.

"How's things?" Fortuna asked her.

"Erm, yeah," Lizzie nodded. "Pretty good."

For once, Lizzie didn't feel as if she were lying when she said that. She was pretty good. She wasn't perfect, but Lizzie didn't believe there was such thing. On that day, in that registry office, Lizzie was happy. Happy to see Iris get married, happy to be with Leo. Happy to be alive. It wouldn't always be so straightforward, but for now… she would hold onto a day that it was.

"They're taking their time…," the Doctor glanced at his watch with a confused look on his brow.

"Well darling," Cioné reassured him, putting her hand on his knee. "If Iris is anything like me."

" _Fashionably late_ ," the Doctor thought back to that wonderful day, even if the proceedings had been slightly delayed. Now, it was his own daughter about to tie the knot, and he felt rather bittersweet about it all. His little girl, all grown up. He thought back fondly to that funny day, with Ode to Joy, and the hospital. The day his family had been sealed forever, when he'd stepped out of whatever lonely, sad place he was in, and faced his responsibilities as a parent. He thought back to all those days, of Iris as a little girl, as she'd grown up. Their laughter, their tears, their moments of beautiful joy.

And all of it had led to now.

"Reminiscing as well?" Cioné asked him. After all… she'd been on exactly the same path down memory lane. Thinking of her beautiful daughter, and all those days they'd spent together. Cioné thought of the love, that bound her to her daughter. The different kind of love, that bounded her daughter to Jada. It had brought them all together, and it had made them all happy.

Today, was a happy day.

Suddenly, the doors smashed inwards again. And this time, it wasn't two late guests.

"It's the Qlerics, they're here!" Jada yelled.

It also wasn't _just_ the happy couple. Iris ran down the aisle, closely followed by Jada who had readied her crossbow, and was steadily firing energy bolts at the monsters as they strode down the aisle after her.

The Qlerics were huge creatures, tall enough to just brush under the ceiling of the registry office. They were bulky, their flesh green, speckled and slimy, with blinking, frog-like eyes flickering around the room at the wedding guests. Their crimson robes trailed behind them as they stomped menacingly through the guests, driving a wedge of division as they prepared to indoctrinate the planet with their faith.

"Just to say!" Iris shouted at the intergalactic evangelical priests, forgetting that both of her parents were in the room. "We're lesbians, we have shagged _so_ much and we're not even married yet, just letting you know…"

It all went so quickly, the giant, humanoid frogs briskly charging past the guests. Cioné leapt up from her seat, dashing over to Iris, and the Doctor followed soon after, grabbing his sonic screwdriver. Ulysses arched his back and readied his claws, and Kym subtly prepared her pepper spray to release on any toad that got too close. Lizzie looked up at the Qlerics, and Jada's words echoed. Now was the time.

"YOU WILL DIE!" the head Qleric, denoted by the gold ribbons on his robes, roared in Jada's face. "You are charged with attempting to pervert our evangelism. Our faith will become dominant on this planet, in mere _seconds_."

"Lizzie!" Jada cried out, as one of the Qleric's restrained her, pulling her close to its slippery skin that reeked of pondwater. "The machine is activated. They'll ask you what the truth is as the brainwashing is happening, just to reinforce it. Don't tell them what they want you to believe. Tell them something else."

And suddenly, all eyes in the room were on her. The Doctor and Cioné gazed at her, a look of desperation on her face. Kym looked not only terrified, but completely confused. Iris gave her a reassuring look – and crucially, Leo was beside her. He gave her hand a comforting squeeze, and Lizzie knew, that whatever was about to happen, Leo would be beside her.

Lizzie stood up, and she walked to the front of the registry office, where Iris and Jada were due to be married. This was it. Somehow think of something strong enough to overwhelm the whole of humanity from being brainwashed by a load of evangelical frogs. A lot more than just another day at the office, it seemed. And quite frankly, Lizzie was terrified, and she had never doubted herself more.

But there was no choice. She had to confront them, and she had to be strong.

"You will give us the truth," the lead Qleric declared.

Now was the moment. Lizzie Darwin had to offer the truth. And she panicked, just briefly, blind confusion engulfing her. Of course, she'd thought about this in advance, tried to think of something strong enough to capture all of humanity. But now… none of it seemed important. How could one communicate the truth behind life, to billions of people, all over the world? It was impossible, there was no one word that could do it.

But that impossibility had to be defied.

"Okay," Lizzie shrugged. The Qlerics had asked for the truth, and so she might as well give it.

"Here's the truth."

All the eyes in the room were on her. All the minds on the planet were on her.

" _I don't know_."

She felt the awkward hesitation in the room, and for a few seconds, she panicked, worrying she'd messed it up. But Leo was looking at her, and he was supporting her. So, she continued.

"All of us here, we're just… muddling through life with no idea what we're actually doing. The truth is, there is no truth. This world is so weird, there are no absolutes, no nothing. It would be impossible to pick a truth, to pick something that reigns above all. Half the time, I've got no idea what I'm doing, no idea who I am, no idea what I'm feeling. I'm just trying. That's what we're all just doing, just… pulling ourselves through this strange enigma called life, something that none of us understand, but something that we all have to go through. All we can do, is cope with it. We might not understand it, but we just have to accept it.

"And so… that's what I'm trying to do. So, this is me, coping. And I'm doing that by loving. I've seen that love can do amazing things. I've seen the power behind it, I've seen lost people come to life because of it. But that's me. We all do it in different ways, we all cope with existence differently. Perhaps, that's why it is so wonderful to be alive."

Lizzie was crying, then, and she awkwardly apologised to everyone in the room. Everyone in the room, who now, was probably devoted to some faith that they'd once hated.

But the Doctor was there, and he looked so proud – he'd been her best friend, and she was so grateful to him. They were once the last two people in the universe, and through that, he had stuck by her, and he had always helped her. In fact, they had helped each other, during tough times. Both of them would always be bonded over that… over those dark days spent together. Now, the Doctor looked happy for her, as finally, Lizzie Darwin discovered some of the contentment he had.

And next to him, Cioné gave a little round of applause, before scattily looking around because nobody else was, due to the state of amazement that had descended upon the room. Cioné, someone who could do nothing but love the universe with all her hearts. And for once, Lizzie felt she perhaps shared some of that love. It was then, that the applause enveloped the whole room. Kym cheered rigorously, even though she didn't know what was going on. That was okay… none of them truly knew what was going on, but they could all learn a thing or two from Kym – that enjoying it, even the smallest things, was important.

The next thing she knew, Iris was holding her close, as two sisters who had blundered through this strange new life on Earth together, with a shared confusion – and now, with a shared appreciation for existing. They had done it together – they had both discovered love together. Lizzie watched Iris as she stepped back and pulled Jada close, and she was beyond happy for them. Iris, so far from the little girl she'd known once, had bounded onto Earth with chaos, madness, loudness, and above all, with heart, and she had truly graced the planet with her presence.

Then, Lizzie turned to Leo, who was gazing at her from the audience. He didn't applaud vigorously, or cheer as loudly – but Lizzie could see it in his eyes, that he loved her. And Lizzie loved him – after all, that speech hadn't come from nothing. She breathed a sigh of relief, and Lizzie realised she was smiling too. She was happy.

She was loved.

That was what life was. The people, their love, their confusion – but all of them together.

And the Qlerics stumbled back, their machine defeated, the planet safe from their clutches. Within seconds, they had teleported away, humiliated as they realised that their mission was wrong. The quest for a truth was never going to produce results.

That was that. The Qlerics were gone. The registry office suddenly seemed a lot quieter. Lizzie was suddenly very aware of the fact she was still stood at the front of the room, and so she quickly made her way to sit with Leo. He held her close, and said, "God, Liz, you were… truly brilliant. Amazing. Seriously, I… I cried!"

Lizzie laughed at him, shrugging it off. "Thank you."

This time, she kissed him.

"One day I'll go to a normal wedding," Cioné laughed. It was only then, that they all noticed the registrar gazing upon them with sheer bemusement. Weddings rarely went as planned, the registrar was probably quite certain of that – but even for her, this one was probably quite spectacular. All eyes turned to her – after all, this was still a wedding, and it was still definitely going ahead.

"Erm. Right," the registrar gathered herself. Then, the ceremony began. It was not lengthy – after all, Iris and Jada were not people for sentimentality – and the wedding had already been sentimental enough. In fact, there were several moments during the wedding, where Iris looked like she was probably about to vomit. But, there was something truly wonderful, even if the couple would not admit it themselves – the love of two people, joined in front of everyone who loved them most of all.

Eventually, they came to the rings.

"I give you this ring, as a reminder of my love for you."

"Iris, Jada – I now pronounce you spouses for life."

The Doctor, Cioné, Lizzie, Leo, Kym, Ulysses (with his paws), Chasya, and Fortuna, stood up and applauded, and Iris and Jada kissed for the first time as a married couple.

The first, of many times to come.

* * *

"Oh shit buggering shit bugger, I've just sat on a button," Iris sat back on the controls, and leaned back against the time rotor. Jada stood beside the console, pulling Iris close to her and kissing her. And as they kissed, the time machine began to breath, and the TARDIS, with that juxtaposition of humanity and machine, began to fly off into space.

The two of them had commandeered it, Iris spinning another one of her usual lies about driving lessons. And now, as impulsively as the wedding, they were flying off, anywhere in time and space. Neither of them could quite believe it – that they were married. But regrets? None at all. Life was weird, nobody knew what it was going to throw up next. So, they might as well do it together. They might as well do it as Mrs and Mrs. Ooh, Iris was a Mrs. That made her feel old.

Before, both of them had been scared, both of them had been tip-toeing around what they really wanted. Iris had been too pre-occupied with her self-doubts, Jada had been too scared of what it would mean to stop being alone. And so it had felt right, for both of them, to throw themselves straight in, impulsively and without thoughts of the consequences. After all, neither of them took half measures, and they both believed, that if you truly wanted something, then you should go as far as you could to try and get it.

Both of them, as the TARDIS went whizzing off into time and space, were certain of their love for each other. Neither of them felt scared anymore, feeling safe in the arms of the other. Life was hard, Iris had learned that – but she thought, that perhaps, there was nothing that would make it easier to deal with than Jada Haruno. Together, they could do it. Together, they could have it all.

That was the moment Iris knew she'd grown up. She understood something that she hadn't done before, something mad, something completely inexplicable. Her true acceptance of Lizzie's words – that life was not perfect, that life was strange. That… the universe was confusing as hell. That she would never be able to understand it, but she would be able to accept it. And that… she would do all of that, with Jada. Perhaps, that was what love was. Being able to face that, side by side, with someone. Or perhaps… love, like life, was however you decided to cope with it.

And as Iris and Jada kissed each other, and undressed each other, and then became entwined with each other, under the light of the stars blazing in the observatory above – they both felt alive. The cold touch of the TARDIS floor, and then the warm touch of each other, and they felt so small, and alone, with a gigantic infinity of everything above their heads. But as they kissed, and made love, that infinity seemed tiny.

They held onto love, and they held onto each other, before it faded away forever, as they both knew it would. But for now, it was wonderful.

The universe was waiting for them. The two of them. And perhaps it was weird, and twisted, and strange – but it was no match for the two of them.

* * *

It was, admittedly, a little bit awkward at first.

But Lizzie lay there, back on the bed, Leo tangled up with her in this strange web of existence. And he kissed her, and she kissed him. They were caught in that moment, somewhere a little bit away from the world, a place of complete ecstasy and wonder, where everything real felt just a little bit… distant. And they seemed to fall into each other, and they became one, and the whole world could go to hell and it wouldn't matter, because they were together. Together, and alive.  
So, so…

Alive.

They were there, together, as they truly were. They were in love, they were open, they were honest. And not even the awe and the wonder of the stars above could compete, not even all the heavens and all the universes could compete with those two people at that moment. For nothing was better than that… it wasn't just sex, it wasn't just a sensation, it meant something, something that neither of them would ever be able to find the words for.

And this was the truth.

The naked truth. The never-ending, infinite truth behind life – the fact that, there was no truth, for it was something more than anything that can be experienced on Earth. The sum total of all the impossibly incoherent parts of life cohering together, in a way that was just astonishing. It could not be described, it could not be explained. But it was anxiety, and the burning fear, that holds you back from being who you truly want. It was about fun, and joy, and living just for the sake of it, because there was no other point.

It was about coping, when life couldn't be coped with. Holding on, just trying to survive every day, even when it took everything out of you.

It was growing up, the passing of time, the passing of life. It was the people around you, the people who loved you, and cared for you.

It was about love, and all the astonishing, mesmerising, magical forms that could take. Parents, and siblings, and lovers, and their devotion and loyalty and passion. The people who would always be beside you, even when they weren't there in reality.

As Lizzie lay back, she couldn't think of any word to describe it, apart from

Life.


	18. update (31st October 2018)

Hey everyone ^_^

I'm really, really sorry for the lack of updates to this series. I have been kinda busy over the last year, but most importantly have struggled a lot with my writing. For some reason I've been very disheartened about everything, I keep scrapping it and starting over, and nothing ever gets finished. I've got myself into a perpetual cycle of thinking everything is rubbish and it's taken a lot of effort to get out of it again. I know this is not much of an excuse and I feel bad, because I had some really lovely feedback about the Doctor and Lizzie's adventures in time and space, and that feedback honestly meant the world to me, so I feel bad for not posting in a long time.

However, I have got myself into a good writing flow recently, I have regained some confidence, and I am back properly now. From November, there should be a minimum of a chapter a month (although I am aiming for more than that!) for the for the foreseeable future.

Furthermore, after receiving feedback about the length of chapters, they're gonna be a shorter too. This should make them more manageable to read, and means that instead of being like a traditional 'episodic' series of Doctor Who it will end up being more like the individual chapters of a book. This might not be to everyone's taste but I think my style suits it better so I'm gonna go with it. As a consequence of this, it will contribute towards chapters being more regular; part of the reason I have struggled with my writing over the last year is because I was essentially trying to write 15 novellas in 12 months, and with my current schedule it was getting way too much. I'm hoping this will be more manageable.

Something else I have been thinking about is my identity as a writer. With chapters being less episodic and more serialised, I expect the fic is going to drift away from the traditional Doctor Who approach of sci-fi adventures in space and time. This is partly because I have found myself more drawn to telling stories about these characters and their relationships, with the impending threat of the Time War in the background. Because of this, the sci-fi adventures is probably going to end up taking more of a backdrop, with stories focusing on things like, for example, Lizzie's depression, her relationship with Leo, the Doctor's relationship with Cioné, Cioné's role in the Time War, Iris finding her place in a war-torn universe.

I know this won't be to everyone's taste, and I am very sorry if that's the case. However I have evolved as a writer, and I know that if I try and replicate what's gone before, it's just gonna be rubbish, and I'm gonna be miserable having to write it – so no fun for anyone at all :P

If any readers from before do end up coming back I will be so grateful, but after being so awful at updating this year I don't blame you if you don't. People appreciating my writing, especially original characters like Lizzie, means the world to me, and I hope that even if my approach changes a bit, people will still find something in the fic to enjoy.

In the next few days, expect to see some Christmassy chapters. I know it's early, but they are actually some of the last few chapters I uploaded on the fanfic blog I write for towards the end of last year, that I haven't gotten around to posting on here yet.

I can't wait to continue this journey with the Doctor, Lizzie, Cioné, Iris, and all the other characters both from the show, and my original creations, and I hope other people will join me. There are lots of exciting things to come. Happy moments and sad moments, and hopefully it will make at least some of you smile.

Thank you so much to anyone taking the time to read this,

Ed


	19. Christmas Lights

"So…," the Doctor said.

The doors opened. Lizzie's street. Exactly as it always was, apart from the big blue box underneath the streetlamp. Obviously. Lizzie walked out from underneath it, and the Doctor came too – just hovering beside the doors.

"Christmas with Maggie?" the Doctor enquired. Just looking out for Lizzie. Always looking out for Lizzie – making sure that she wouldn't be alone.

"Yeah," Lizzie smiled, trying to hide herself together. Trying to… keep her emotions buried. She was good at it, to be fair. Maggie had always said it was one of Lizzie's greatest talents. Lizzie wasn't sure whether that was a good thing.

"Tell her I say hello…," the Doctor smiled. Lizzie laughed – Maggie always gave the Doctor quite a hard time whenever she saw him. Lizzie wondered whether things would be any different at Christmas – probably not. But Lizzie could see it – Maggie liked the Doctor – and Maggie would always vet anyone close to Lizzie, to ensure that they wouldn't hurt her. And although she would never say it… Lizzie could see it, whenever the Doctor was on the scene, that Maggie thought he was a decent guy.

"I will."

"And… you'll look after yourself? Because…," the Doctor said, not sure what words to use. "I – I worry about you, Lizzie. All the time."

Lizzie shook her head, as if to ridicule what the Doctor was saying. "Honestly. Don't worry about me. I'm fine. Always will be."

The Doctor looked at her incredulously. That was exactly the reason he always worried. Especially at Christmas. Season of goodwill and cheer, and happiness. Of course Lizzie was going to say she was fine. He did not believe her for a second, however.

"Straight to Maggie's, yes? I don't want you alone on Christmas Day…"

"'Course," Lizzie smiled. She hesitated – and so did the Doctor. It felt strange, almost… too quick.

That was what life was like with the Doctor, though. One minute, you'd do… such mad, amazing things. And the next, it was over – like they'd just been on some sort of errand.

Lizzie realised what she needed to say. It was Christmas. Why not tell him the truth?

"It means a lot," she said, smiling at him, a look of sheer gratitude upon his face. "That… you take me to all these places. Include me in your family. So… thank you. So much."

The Doctor gave her that look. He always gave her that look. That look, as if to say 'you're part of my family, and you always will be'.

"No, Elizabeth," the Doctor shook his head. "Thank you. And… I hope that you have the most wonderful of Christmases."

Lizzie had to look away, then, unable to watch him as he said those words. She bit her tongue, and looked out of the light of the streetlamp.

"Goodnight, Doctor," she turned back to the Doctor, like she was willing him to go. She could see that that was the way he'd interpreted it. She saw the brief look of disappointment flicker across his face.

The Doctor paused, not wanting to say it.

"Goodnight, Lizzie."

He stepped back inside the TARDIS, as the doors shut behind him.

Lizzie looked away, at the street ahead of her. She heard the noise – the slow wheezing sound, and she could picture it – see it fading away, disappearing off to wherever the Doctor was destined next. Often, Lizzie was on board, excitement and intrigue leaping in her heart, as she wondered what beautiful corner of the universe they would see next. And they would fly, so fast through space, facing the universe with determination and hope – and they would greet the universe with open arms.

But not this time. Lizzie felt her feet firmly on the Earth – and she did not move. She looked away from the box, unable to bear the sight of it – so instead, Lizzie's eyes drifted over the street, and she bit her tongue, trying hard not to cry, Nobody would see – but Lizzie still didn't want to cry.

She saw the houses and sets of apartments lining the road. There were Christmas trees in their windows, the glow of Christmas lights hanging on the ledges, as if each property was even endeavouring to get into the Christmas spirit. Lizzie could see candelabras, Christmas cards, little ornamental ceramic snowmen, probably from the primary school's Christmas fair. Lizzie saw wreathes on doors, 'Santa stop here' signs, and even a pair of welly boots tied upside down on top of a chimney.

It just hurt more, and so Lizzie looked at the ground. Her eyes traced the concrete, in all its bleak greyness. No snow. There never seemed to be any snow at Christmas. The dreaded sound of the TARDIS finally died down, and Lizzie could breathe again.

Stood alone, by the side of the road, Lizzie took in the air. It was freezing out, and she pulled her coat around her – but it was so chilly, that it didn't make too much of a difference. Therefore, Lizzie resigned herself, to drift slowly off to her flat. It might be warmer in there, and at least she wouldn't have to look at all the festivity constricting the world around her. So, she turned, and hesitantly walked to the door behind her.

But she stopped, when she heard the bells ring.

Some nearby church – the bells rung in melodic fashion – and then she heard them strike.

 _One. Two. Three._

That church. People gathered inside, worshipping some deity, warmed by the spirit of each other and the community they enjoyed. Content in their faith, in a way, Lizzie was happy for them. If that was how they got their kicks, so long as they didn't harm anyone, she couldn't care less. They probably had more focus on Christmas day than her.

 _Four. Five. Six._

Having said that, the religious elitists who got stroppy about Christmas now acting against their faith were truly irritating. While she was no die-hard Christmas fanatic anyway, and most certainly not religious, even Lizzie could see that the yuletide season transcended far beyond its Christian watermark.

 _Seven. Eight. Nine._

Lizzie just thought Christmas should be celebrated however one chose to celebrate it. Not to be forced down one's throat, as Lizzie was too used to experiencing.

 _Ten. Eleven._

 _Twelve._

Midnight.

Christmas Day.

Nothing changed. Much. Except… now it felt like a confirmation. Christmas was here. Joy to the world, etc.

Lizzie breathed again, and this time it was shaky, and nervous. An insomniac, alone at home during the small hours of Christmas day. Perhaps she would go insane.

So, contrary to every and any degree of sensibility, Lizzie turned from her doorstep, and began to walk down the road. She had no idea where she was going, but she didn't really care. She just walked down the road, past the houses with their decorations, past the sleeping people waiting for a day of giving and togetherness, past the children sleeping contently, Santa Claus watching over, protecting from the dark outside. Lizzie made an effort to ignore it all.

 **Maggie – 00:04**  
 _Ho ho ho! Hope you're okay love. Phone me at some point xx_

Lizzie stopped beneath a street lamp, and tapped out a reply.

 **Me – 00:05**  
 _Am good. Will phone at some point x_

That was good enough. Lizzie eyed the underground station at the far end of the road, and decided to make her way over to it. Hop on a train, go… somewhere.

Though as she walked over, her phone began to ring. As expected, it was Maggie – and Lizzie answered it, after a brief spell of hesitation.

Maggie's voice was crackly, and almost a little bit muffled, in that way that mobile phone voices so frequently are. But it did not matter – as soon as Lizzie heard it, she felt a little bit better.

"Merry Christmas, love!" Maggie's voice came down the phone. It was just a voice – and yet, it was like Maggie was with her. Lizzie saw a bench, and she sat down on it, holding her phone tight to her ear, as if there were a risk that it might slip away. Regardless of how stupid it was – it was a chance Lizzie wasn't willing to take,

Lizzie couldn't help but smile. "Merry Christmas."

"You alright?" Maggie asked – and then stopped. "Where even _are_ you? Are you on Mars or something?"

"No," Lizzie said, chuckling. "I'm on Earth."

With a bit more trepidation and uncertainty, Maggie asked… "You sure you're alright, love? You sound… shaky," Maggie wasn't actually sure what _shaky_ meant.

The words, however simple, were like a knife to Lizzie's heart. But she didn't waver. Wouldn't cry.

"Yeah," Lizzie shrugged it off nonchalantly, doing a pretty good job at sounding alright. "Shivering. Just out and about."

 _Technically_ she wasn't lying.

"Well, get inside!" Maggie instructed, and Lizzie heard Maggie quickly drawing her Dunsworthian curtains. "Looks bloody freezing out…"

Lizzie could tell that Maggie still wasn't 100% certain of Lizzie's excuse. "It is. Really cold. I'll go in soon."

A brief spell of silence passed – one unusual in their conversations.

"Chaos at the home earlier," Maggie said, trying to stir up some conversation. "Absolute madness."

"Really?" Lizzie asked. "The kids alright?"

Maggie made a noise to indicate her uncertainty. The answer was probably _no_. To be a child in care at Christmas was a terrible thing, and Lizzie would be quite happy if those memories just… left her brain, and never returned. "Some kids acting up, some not doing anything, some just being normal. Such a sad place to be at Christmas. Not nice at all. Pat and Sarah really have to work the impossible."

"They always did try," Lizzie acknowledged. Even if they couldn't make much of a difference, at least they were there, and tried to understand what it was like. "Chaotic here as well. In a different way, of course."

"Yeah. 'Course. But nice chaos?" Maggie asked. "Because… I'm so glad that you're going to be spending Christmas with the Doctor and his family. I wouldn't have agreed to work if I knew you weren't."

Lizzie hesitated, as if she couldn't bring herself to say the words. Eventually, she spoke.

"Yeah. Nice chaos."

Only three words. Four syllables. Meant it was very hard to make the words tremble, and Lizzie could just about struggle through them without tripping over them. She still had to force them out, though, much to the pain in her gut. Lizzie pushed her forefinger nail into her thumb, the sensation of pain a welcomed distraction – and even that was barely enough.

Somehow, Lizzie found herself continuing. "The Doctor is watching some documentary on the telly about classical composers and Christmas carols. Cioné is knitting, and Iris is sat deliberately trying to wind her up. Kym's here as well, pouring herself _another_ mulled wine…," Lizzie stopped, realising that she'd started to sound… almost wistful, and as if she could talk about it and somehow be transported to that place. "Yeah. It's good."

"Blimey," Maggie exclaimed. "All at this time of night?"

"They're Time Lords," Lizzie quickly said. "They sleep weirdly. And one of them is Kym, who basically… never sleeps."

Maggie laughed. She'd met Kym once. Quite an unforgettable presence.

Lizzie was content with her life, and for a few seconds, she put the phone to her shoulder and looked away, to blink the freezing tears from her eyes.

"So yeah! All good here," Lizzie said. She sounded content. Genuinely, properly content. In a strange way, for someone who tried to be honest and kind… Lizzie thought herself to be quite a good liar.  
Maggie breathed a sigh of relief. Thank god Lizzie was going to be alright. It was what she'd been most afraid of, when she'd agreed to work on Christmas day. But… so long as Lizzie wasn't going to be alone. Maggie laughed, just so happy that she finally had her mind put to rest. "You really need to get out of the cold, love!" Maggie exclaimed, a chuckle creeping into her voice.

"Y – yeah," Lizzie laughed as well.

"You know, Lizzie," Maggie began. Lizzie listened as she spoke the words, and she held tightly to them. "I'm so happy for you. Happy that you could finally find a family. I've… I've watched you grow up, and honestly – that means so much."

Lizzie nodded, even though Maggie wouldn't know. At least if she nodded, it might make Lizzie _feel_ as if she was being honest. It might just make her feel that there were people waiting for her.

"That doesn't make you any less important," Lizzie said. And this time, she _was_ being honest.

"Me? Ha! Don't be stupid."

"I'm not! Honestly. You deserve the best Christmas."

Maggie paused. "Thank you, love. So much."

"Right," Lizzie said. "I really need to go inside. It's so cold…"

"Yes," Maggie declared. "Yes, you do. Get back in that flat, make sure Kym isn't drinking the wine – enjoy it. Embrace it!"

"I will," Lizzie said.

"Ta-ra, love."

"Bye."

The phone bleeped, and Maggie was gone. Lizzie held the phone by her ear, just for a bit longer – as if, in some blind bit of Christmas hope, Maggie might still be there. Might still have something to say to her on Christmas morning.

But it was silent. And in that silence, and the night, and the cold, Lizzie Darwin felt very, very small.

Slowly, she took her phone from her ear, and slipped it into the pocket of her jacket. Maggie's voice already seemed distant – Maggie seemed further away than she'd done before. And Lizzie stood, and walked across the sullen tarmac to the other side of the road.

Yes. Lizzie had… twisted things, a little bit. Told the Doctor she was spending Christmas with Maggie. Told Maggie she was spending Christmas with the Doctor.

Lizzie traipsed over to the underground station, and made her way down the steps. Soon, she was engulfed by the ground, and she scanned her oyster card over the car-reader. The barrier, notorious for its inability to read cards and tickets, let her through with little fuss – and Lizzie felt that even it was embracing Christmas with open arms.

Passing through the barrier, she stepped onto the escalator, and began a descent to the belly of the Earth. Reduced services, but the night tube was still chugging through, a thankful reminder beneath the surface of society that life still went on.

It didn't totally feel that way, however. There were adverts, electronic and paper, stuck to the wall, eying Lizzie up as she made her steady crawl downwards, as if the very businesses they promoted were eying her with nothing but contempt. _Good_ , she thought.

But that was it – it was like Lizzie could not escape it, not even beneath the surface of the Earth. Because it was there, wherever she went. Christmas! Christmas, Christmas, bloody Christmas, all the time from 1st of bloody November through to mid-January when the post-Christmas sales eventually dried up. And it was painful, and torturous to endure.

Lizzie waited for five minutes on the platform. Five, long, dragging, tedious minutes. Normally she was patient, but sometimes, Lizzie just felt the passing of time, and felt it to be so quick, and to feel a desperate need to chase after it so it couldn't get her first. And yet… it was impossible to beat it.

Time was a thing so immense and so invincible, that what hope did anyone have in beating it? What hope did anyone have of understanding it?

And that was all Lizzie wanted. For people to understand that she did not _hate_ Christmas. And if she ever had to hear the phrase 'don't be such a Grinch' ever again, Lizzie was quite certain she would finally lose her marbles for good. She was not bitter, or cruel, or nasty. She did not hate what Christmas stood for. In fact, she thought it was very admirable, and she respected it greatly. She just found it hard. Nothing more than that. Just _hard_.

Eventually, the train wormed its way through the tunnel and to the platform. Its doors opened, and Lizzie stepped on board. A couple sat at the far end of the carriage, one of them chatting about she was flying out to see her cousins in Japan and grandparents in the Himalayas, and how her grandparents were keeping an alpaca stronghold and making cheese out of the milk, or something. Lizzie ignored them, and sat close to the doors, so she could make as quick an escape as possible when the time eventually came.

And because she found it tricky, all she wanted was for people to understand that for some, a festival of love and unity was not always so easy.

Lizzie was content in the family she had around her. Why, she was not willing to cut off her nose to spite her face, although her brain _did_ do some blatantly illogical things.

No… it was the simple fact that Lizzie was not in the mood for expectation. It was not a simple matter of simply having people around. The point still stood. Christmas was a time of year tinged with sadness, and to live Christmas as a child in care was nothing short of one of the hardest things she had endured. And whenever the festivities rolled around again, as they did every year, Lizzie felt those memories stir from their slumber, a reverse hibernation, leading monsters out to the front of her mind again.

A world of joy was painful, when all Christmas did was awaken memories of the absolute antithesis.  
Hence her isolation.

She loved them all dearly. Maggie. The Doctor. Iris. Cioné. But they would be happy, and Lizzie would not. And she did not want to dampen their days – especially Iris, who held Christmas so close to her heart. She also did not want to feel as if _she_ had to feel like them.

All she wanted was to be alone.

And yet… being alone was nearly just as hard.

There it was. Christmas. The one time of year when she could never win. And it wasn't even her fault, like Christmas had been destined to be rubbish ever since she was a kid.

It always came back, every year. Those memories of the past, always resurrected by seeing all those families, so close to each other. Lizzie had a family now – one who she loved dearly – and she was grateful to them – for being there for her. Lizzie always thought, it was one of the worst things – the people that had nobody to go to at Christmas – it was one thing her shutting herself off by choice, but quite another for those who had nobody – and quite another for those who were scarred, and were so often ignored.

And togetherness at Christmas only brought back the memories of the times she hadn't been with anyone.

Lizzie had spent Christmas alone before. In her little flat in Dunsworth, or back in Durham. She was used to it, and… numb to it, perhaps. Maybe it had reached the point where she just… didn't care.  
Lizzie didn't think about her mum much. She didn't think about either of her parents much. Perhaps, though, it was because the presence of both of them was always felt simply in everything Lizzie did.

They had shaped her past – set forth the events that led to her ending up in care. And through that, they had breathed life to the events and demons that had slept inside her head. Besides – she had enough things to face without having to face her parents as well, with her parents an issue that she had laid to rest a while ago. Hence why her father's little dream appearance had come along at perhaps the worst time – for it simply awoke things she'd been done with, a long time ago.

It was, instead, what her parents had done to her that messed her up.

But at Christmas, it sometimes crossed her mind. Her parents… what would life be like, if things were different? What would Christmas be like? Her parents would be rich, and she'd have gone to some private school, and married some rich, stuffy old Tory, someone she'd been matched to at one of her mum's crazy social dos.

Maybe that was the plot of Bridget Jones.

Lizzie loved those films. Socially inept weirdo stumbling through life with no Christmas.

And yet… Bridget Jones had a heart. Always tried to do what was right. That was what Lizzie tried to be, at Christmas – even if it was not 'the most wonderful time of year' for her, she could at least try and be somewhat like Maggie. Do something… good for people.

She'd often been inspired by someone, not much older than her, who'd built _The Fox Force_ – a charity to help children and young people affected by major attacks and disasters – who, every Christmas, embarked on an enormous charity drive. She'd raised it from nothing, fought tooth and nail to get it to where it was – and still fought hard to prevent the big companies – _Google_ , _Apple_ , _Facebook_ , from endorsing their efforts, and using them to piggyback their way to appearing like good, moral corporations.

So, she tried to be kind. So hard, just in the hope it might make things easier for someone like her.  
The train continued its way through London, and the darkness of the tunnels blended into one black constancy – a monotony of travel. That was, perhaps, an apt way for Lizzie to think about her Christmases. Things that just… happened, every year, at a regular interval. Not anything she hated. Not anything she loved… just something she didn't care about.

That was it. Ambivalence. Not having a feeling of wanting to enjoy anything.

Half an hour later, it stopped. As Lizzie filed out onto the platform, and made her way up to the surface, there were people – a lot more, going about whatever it is they did. The numbers increased exponentially as Lizzie traipsed up to the ground – and soon, as Lizzie wandered up to the steps, and stood back in the night, looking out over the people ahead of her – it could easily just be the daytime.

People, late at night – and as Lizzie walked out and around the corner, and stood on Oxford Street, it was like the world didn't sleep. That was the one thing about London that Lizzie didn't like – once upon a time, in Dunsworth, she could be awake from any time after midnight, and it would be like time itself had stopped – like the world had ground to a halt – and Lizzie was the only one with the permission to walk over it. And she could do it – living, pulling herself together – all outside the confines of existence.

But in London, that time window was drawn so short, to an hour or two at most – and even then, it barely existed. Time kept ticking, with restaurants and bars and places still open – and when they closed, it wouldn't be long before supermarkets that opened so ridiculously early started taking in cash. And all that time, there would be someone about, somewhere. Company, that Lizzie didn't want – when she just wanted to be alone. Because that was _her_ time. While Lizzie craved company and understanding, she needed that way out too. Oh, to be an introvert was such a paradox.

As Lizzie walked down Oxford Street, through the throngs of people all wrapped up in winter woollies and kept burning by the heat in their hearts, she could see it. The life passing her by – packs of individuals, laughing and chatting and smiling, kept alive through the night by the sheer act of enjoying themselves. The darkness didn't matter, when the world was lit up.

And actually – Lizzie didn't feel not alone. Instead… she felt more alone.

For the briefest of seconds – she was scared. There wasn't much worse than to be in a place full of people and still feel alone – for it made her feel isolated – an outsider. It was even worse, when with a group that one loved – to feel isolated from the individuals who held such stature was truly one of the hardest things. But it was tough too, when walked through a crowded street, or a place where life seemed to be captured in some sort of microcosm, and to feel like she wasn't part of it. To feel like… Lizzie was drifting by, a ghost unable to live it.

That's all Lizzie felt like sometimes.

A ghost.

Lizzie looked up, as she walked down Oxford Street. She stood alone in the middle, the crowds washing over her, trapping her in the middle. But that was okay – and she stopped, and looked up.

She saw the Christmas lights.

Orbs, shining brightly, spherical, almost like moons – celestial objects, shining in blue and gold, suspended above and through that, almost distant but drawn so close – like a dream that was somehow being lived. The shops were covered, blanketed in a tight-knit cover, draped over the buildings as if to protect them from the cold that could come and freeze the world at any moment.

They hung over the street, joining at the centre, like two arms had reached out to each other to guide each other through the dark. And all shone, as if they could light up the world, and guide people home.

And Lizzie remembered then why she liked London – for it was a place that she felt at home – and as Lizzie looked up at those lights, it was as if she'd just been returned there – brought back to that place she felt alive. It worked for her, to blend into obscurity, and to drift along on the periphery as if she didn't quite exist – in a way, it brought her to life, simply watching the world tick by. For at the same time, everyone else becoming background noise meant she saw those that she loved in even greater focus.

When she had, that one, fateful time, dared to go clubbing with Lizzie and Iris, she had hated it – the sheer volume of people in the room constricted the life from her, crushing her – and she hated it.

But at the same time, she had seen Iris and Kym, and Ulysses too – and it was like everyone else had been invisible to the people who mattered.

It was then that she had found Leo.

Lizzie stood there, letting the world walk past her – and she looked up at the sky, and to the lights. Not only did they bring the world to life around her, but they brought her to life too.

She watched them, holding them close. Hoping that one day, even when things hurt – even when Christmas hurt – that she could hold onto those lights, and they would guide her through – home.

And then Lizzie's eyes fell down. There was a man, nestled between the units of two of the shops. He looked as if he was in his 50s, though perhaps stress had taken its toll, as he seemed weathered simply by the act of living. His face was rough, his features sharp, his facial hair a straggly mess, a jungle upon his head. He looked to the floor, burying his eyes in the ground beneath him – and occasionally, he would glance up. He looked sad, sat alone in his patchwork threadbare quilt, with damp, sodden and flimsy trainers on his feet, and an old blazer, once white, but faded a murky grey by the elements. His trousers were plaid, his shirt a faded yellow, and a spotty tie lay loose on an open neck.

He wrapped his garments and accessories tightly around him, though Lizzie could see him shivering from where she stood. It was freezing, and Lizzie could not even fathom what it would be like to be outside on such a night. Not only a night of such bitter conditions, but on Christmas morning. While the world would sleep cosily in their beds, warmth burning in their hearts in the excitement for Christmas Day – the man would waver in and out of consciousness, upon his bed of cardboard, only to wait for another day, the same as any other – just a little bit more painful. And that was what it was like – the world, and the man. An outcast to everyone else.

Lizzie hated it, that there were people sleeping on the streets. Not because of the people, of course – but because nobody ever did anything about them. 'Them'. Even a subconscious division that Lizzie didn't think about. Because… they weren't a 'them'. They were an 'us', and Lizzie despised the way in which others, just like her, were treated like dirt. It made her angry, and sad, and everything in between, that there were men and women who had to live like the man she saw below her – and it always felt like no matter how many times she cast her vote a specific way, or signed petitions, or did whatever… nothing ever seemed to happen.

This time, while it might not have made that much difference, Lizzie decided to do something.

She walked across the street, to the McDonalds beside which the man was sitting, and she entered.

* * *

McDonalds, open at night. Probably just another push for commercialisation, but Lizzie was too enamoured by its convenience to care. It was a tall building, airy, with white lights shining down from above, like a divine slap to the face after emerging from the darkness outside. There were not many gathered around the tables, barring a rowdy group of teenagers, two middle-aged women sat gossiping, a few young people who looked like students… Lizzie walked past them all.

"Next please!" the guy at the counter called, even though there was nobody else that could want serving. Lizzie walked up to the counter.

"Oh, er, hi," she muttered.

"What can I get you?"

For all Lizzie loved fast food (which she did – considerably), the environment was one of immense stress. She had braved McDonalds during the lunchtime rush before, and she would never do so again – and while, at quarter to one in the morning, it was not so busy – it still stressed her.

"Er…," she hesitated, her eyes scanning over the banner thing at the top. What to get? She had no idea – burgers? Nuggets? Fries? "Can I have a, er… yeah, two lots of twelve nuggets, er… two large fries…"

Yes. Lizzie was going to need the fries.

"… a Big Mac, a strawberry milkshake, a latte, er… an apple pie? Yeah," Lizzie looked up at the menu again, as if to confirm. "Yeah, that's all, thanks," Lizzie confirmed. "It's, er, erm, not all for me," she quietly added the disclaimer.

"Eat in?"

"Yeah," she said, sticking her card into the machine and paying. Then, the man behind the counter turned and began preparing the food. He fumbled around, taking longer than it usually took at McDonalds. Then again. Lizzie hadn't ever ordered so much before.

A few minutes later, and the man presented her with everything on two trays.

She noticed that he had given her an extra fries. Lizzie looked up at them, and then looked at the man.

"Have them. And have a happy Christmas."

Unfortunately, Lizzie didn't actually hear him – whether it was simply her mind drifting off somewhere else at one o'clock in the morning, or whether it was her usual ineptness and the way she tended to gravitate towards awkward situations like a moth gravitated to a flame – Lizzie wasn't sure.

However, because she did not hear him, she stood, presenting the fries at arm's length, returning them.

"I said take them!" he said, a bit more insistently.

Lizzie realised her faux pas. Well. That would require her to recognise everything she did in public – but at least she realised her idiocy. When she looked up at the man behind the counter, she saw his face. Not a look of anger, or irritation. Merely a look of pity.

"Oh, er, sorry…" she murmured, not really concentrating. The guy smiled his pitiful smile as Lizzie tried to balance both trays on her arms. "Actually, er…," Lizzie realised that it would not end well, taking both trays at once. "Yeah, I'll… I'll do two journeys."

* * *

She invited the man in – 'invited'. Made it sound as it were some kind of dinner party. Posh, neither of them were. Dinner party – yeah. As Lizzie looked down at the paper bags, she thought to herself – this was better than any dinner party.

The man came in, and he sat down in front of Lizzie. There was a sort of awkward tension between them, and neither of them spoke much. The man pulled his chair in, though he seemed to pull his jacket even tighter – he'd been outside for so long, than the warm building almost didn't feel any different. Lizzie hesitated, and then reached over to the food.

"Sorry, I, er, didn't know what you liked, so I just sort of… got loads. Er...," she rifled through the paper bags and began fishing stuff out.

"I'm not exactly… choosy," the man smiled.

"Er… there's some nuggets, a big mac, oh, I brought you a latte but like –"

"Seriously," he stopped her. "It's fine. Thank you."

Lizzie smiled, as if to say 'no problem'. It wasn't a problem. Nothing of the sort. Even as Lizzie looked down, she felt useless, like what she was doing meant nothing.

Another awkward silence passed between the two of them.

"You got family to be with?" the man asked. Perhaps it struck him as odd that she was out and about at such a time in the small hours of Christmas Day.

"Yeah," Lizzie smiled. "Just… not with them. That's all."

The man seemed taken aback. "Why not?"

 _Complex question_ , Lizzie thought. She didn't even know herself. Her whole life was one entire paradox apparently, and this was no exception. _Why_ wasn't she with her family?

 _Why?_

1\. She didn't want to rain on what would be, for them, a wonderful parade. Lizzie was quite sure of that.

2\. She wasn't with them because she was afraid. So many Christmases alone, it had almost made her scared to spend them with someone else.

3\. She couldn't face Christmas. To spend Christmas with a family was to do just that – spend _Christmas._ And as she'd deduced – for her, that was easier said than done. Couldn't be dealing with everyone else being happy, when she just… didn't want to be.

And yet, all three reasons were almost voided by the fact she didn't want to be alone.

"Doesn't really matter, does it?" Lizzie said, shrugging it off.

The man looked as if he were weighing the factors up. _Christmas day. People you love._ Perhaps he just saw Lizzie and saw her internal dilemma, that burning confusion. "Matters quite a lot."

Lizzie didn't agree. The three reasons she had discussed with herself were quite clear. In fact, Lizzie had made quite a good case for her argument. If she wasn't so lacking in confidence and so unable to argue anything she didn't believe in, Lizzie would make quite a good lawyer. But, she had certainly convinced herself that, for the reasons mentioned, there was no need for her to be with anyone on Christmas Day.

"Why, then? Why doesn't it matter?" as if he were reading her expression. He sat back, taking a sip from his latte.

"I dunno. I just…"

Her voice trailed off, and she didn't finish. Lizzie looked at her chicken nuggets, thought eating one, and decided she just… couldn't.

Her mind did that. Convinced itself of various different mental lists that were, in fact, utter shit. She always needed someone to tell her that, though – that her brain was being useless.

So. What was it?

 _That_ was it.

She just hated being sad on Christmas day. She couldn't bear those beautiful people to see her sad on Christmas day.

Lizzie looked at the man – and their eyes met. A mutual flicker of recognition across each other's faces – as if they understood something about each other.

"You should go to your family," he said bluntly, tucking into a chicken nugget.

"Why?" Lizzie was entirely confused.

"Because you're sad."

The words caught Lizzie short, just for a few seconds. She hadn't been expecting them. Was it _that_ obvious? Perhaps with anyone privy to the constant implosion that was her mind, then yes.

But to anyone else… Lizzie had become accustomed to disguising herself. That was, after all, why she was so frequently known as the Grinch, or… whatever else one cared to insult her with. And, in fact, while Lizzie would not credit herself for much, she would certainly credit herself for that.

Though maybe, the man just understood her. He could, perhaps… see through her.

"I'm fine," Lizzie said, like she was trying to bury what the man had said by drinking her strawberry milkshake.

"You… look sad."

That was Lizzie's natural aura. Sad. A bit grumpy. She could hide anything behind that.

"I'm honestly not," she smiled at him, in the way she smiled at the Doctor when she told him not to worry about her.

"Christmas makes it harder."

Lizzie didn't answer back this time. What did one say to that? The words hit so true, that she couldn't even bring herself to lie about them.

"Out there," the man gestured outside the window to his usual spot. "I don't look at the ground because I worry what others think of me. It's just too painful."

Lizzie nodded.

Some things… people just didn't understand.

Lizzie was about to say something, then stopped. It had been a convenient way to change the subject, but, in fact, Lizzie realised it was tactless. She thought to herself, then spoke again.

"Everyone is so bothered about there being a white Christmas. But I guess that for you, it's awful?"

"It's not great."

"Sorry."

"Don't have anything to apologise for. Don't know why people get so worked up about snow anyway."

"Yeah?"

"I like the lights," the man said. "Look out there now."

The lights on Oxford Street. Beautiful.

"Yeah," Lizzie agreed. "They're beautiful."

"Aren't they? Guiding people home…"

 _May all your troubles soon be gone, those Christmas lights, keep shining on_. Some song lyric, one that had just become faintly lodged in her head. She liked it. Maybe, one day, her troubles would be gone, and those lights would guide her there. The man had used a funny choice of words.

"Can't do you any much harm to go home," the man said. "Warmth. People to love. Maybe not happiness, but at least…"

"I'm… not worried about the harm it'd do me."

She was lying. She totally was.

There was a pause.

"Why'd you say that? About Christmas lights… guiding people home?"

"They guided me home."

"Yeah?"

"Not literally. Few years ago, I realised something. It was Christmas night, and I saw the lights. That was all."

She did not know what it was he realised.

"Haven't slept in a bed for longer than a night since."

Lizzie wondered what he could have realised, that could have brought him out to the streets. She didn't need to know. It was okay for her not to know.

Now he was the one who looked sad. "It's okay to be sad at Christmas."

"I know… doesn't make it any easier."

"No. No, 'course not."

"But promise me you won't stay out?" he insisted

"I can't promise that…"

"You have a place to go. There might just be a light, somewhere, that'll make you realise that not all hope is lost, and not all love is gone. Christmas? The hardest time, for so many – and that's fine. But we can get through it, hmm?"

Lizzie smiled.

"Yeah. Yeah, we can."

They didn't even know each other's names. But that was okay. Like ships passing in the night.

* * *

Lizzie eventually made it up to the top of the last stair – and she stood, outside her flat. She watched the door, just for a few seconds. Home. Perhaps she would be alone at Christmas… but Lizzie felt okay about it. Because no longer was she trapped in feeling guilty about being sad at Christmas.

While she was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a wallower – Lizzie would be happy in living her life as she always did. And maybe she'd put on a few Christmas specials. She liked Christmas specials.

She smiled, and she breathed a sigh of relief. She was quite tired. It was late, and as sleeping was entirely out of the question, she decided that she'd go inside, make herself a nice cup of tea, and slump down in the armchair. Lizzie would read her book for a while – maybe she'd lose consciousness at the bidding of slumber, but it didn't matter if not. She slipped the key into the lock, turned it, and pushed the door.

However, Lizzie was quite taken aback – for the lights were on. Now… Lizzie could distinctly remember turning the lights _off_ before she'd left the flat, simply because she remembered Iris leaving them on, and she remembered herself complaining about it, declaring it a waste of electricity.

But they were on. Quietly, Lizzie entered the flat. She snuck in, passed Iris' general piles of clutter building up at various intervals on the floor. There didn't seem to be anybody about… but Lizzie continued, out into the main body of the flat. It seemed entirely empty, just as the rest of the flat had done. So, she walked further out into the flat, senses honed, ready to run away from any intruders.

But there was nobody to b –

"Hello," came a voice a few metres to the right of her.

Lizzie jumped, almost leaping backwards to catch a good look of the voice she recognised pretty instantly. "Jesus ch – oh," she spluttered, as the familiarity finally registered with her brain.

The Doctor. He was stood there in the kitchen, sipping from a mug of tea. However, at the sight of her shock, he quickly placed the mug on one of the kitchen surfaces and dashed over to Lizzie as quickly as he could. "Sorry, sorry, sorry – it's me."

"Yes," Lizzie protested, trying desperately to catch her breath, and having to sit down in one of the armchairs to fully regain herself. "I can see that! I thought somebody had broken in…"

"Sorry – do you want my tea to recuperate?"

Lizzie sounded the situation out further. "Have you drunk from it?"

"A bit."

"Eww. No thanks."

The Doctor shrugged. "None taken."

Rather irritatingly, the Doctor had a face that was very difficult not to smile at. He had wandered over to the balcony, and was looking out at the night sky. Christmas morning – and the stars shone brightly over London. His face shone in the moonlight and the starlight, and the Doctor thought that it all looked quite beautiful.

"You've got a lovely view here," the Doctor smiled, his voice distant, almost as if it were being carried off into space by the stars outside the window.

"Yeah," Lizzie smiled, standing up to join him. It was cold, by the window, and she pulled her coat close around her – but although it was cold, Lizzie didn't feel as if she wanted to get away from it.

Perhaps, inside, she felt okay enough not to care. The Doctor and Lizzie looked out the window – the small hours was always the weirdest time to be awake… because nobody else was. The world had a strange quality to it – of utter peace and contentment. It only felt stronger, on a morning like Christmas.

"Wait," Lizzie said, suddenly realising something. "You bought this place and you never even checked it out?"

The Doctor looked sheepishly to the ground. "I was very tied up. Cioné came, though. She approved."

"You're ridiculous," Lizzie shook her head, a smile dancing across her face. "I thought you liked architecture…"

"I do," the Doctor admitted. "Just… not this sort of architecture."

"You're so middle-class," Lizzie chuckled. Had anybody told her a year ago that her best friend would be a middle-class Edwardian gentleman, she'd have laughed in their face.

"I'm not!" the Doctor protested.

"Such a champagne socialist…"

The Doctor jokingly scowled at her. "I… do my bit."

"Look," Lizzie continued. "Nothing wrong with having money and being a socialist. So long as you practise what you preach."

The Doctor smiled, holding onto the windowsill and gently rocking backwards on the balls of his feet. It was like he was trying to hold onto the moment – holding it closely to himself. That was, perhaps, something that everyone should do at Christmas. Hold onto things, as one never knows when they might end. And so the Doctor treasured it – himself, and Lizzie.

"It's been… the weirdest year," Lizzie admitted. It felt as if it had gone on forever, and as if so many weird things had happened. Well. So many weird things _had_ happened. When she looked back on the person she had been at the start of the year… they were so different. Almost two different people. And yet, at the same time… almost exactly the same. Lizzie had learned to live – and at the same time, she was still tired of living. She had come to terms with her depression – and there were still days when she wanted nothing more than for life to just… stop.

And that was the hardest thing. To know what a crazy year it had been, and to know that there were just going to be more of them. That life was just going to keep coming at her, thick and fast, and that it would keep wearing her down. And it scared Lizzie to think what might happen if she ever broke again, like she when the universe had ended and she'd faced a childhood version of herself. Again – another weird thing that had happened in the space of a year.

But what defined it, more than anything? Perhaps it was that now, finally, Lizzie had learned to be sad. Accepted how she felt – all the time, and at Christmastime.

Not much of an achievement.

But it still made the impossible make sense, just a bit.

As she looked to the Doctor, she remembered. He'd packed a lifetime into her one year – literally, the start of his daughter's lifetime. So many years for him, all wrapped around one for her – and he could see it in his eyes, the age weighing on them. It always confused her, and made her brain hurt, the way their times had aligned. And at the same time, it didn't matter.

They were still together, at that moment, looking out the window.

"How did you know?" Lizzie asked. She knew he would understand what she meant. Lizzie had built something with him – and the Doctor would understand.

"It's Christmas. I just… know these things."

Lizzie sighed, and smiled, for she hadn't expected an actual answer.

Though, in a way, that was enough of an answer.

"Why did you lie to us?" the Doctor asked her. The words were a slap around the face, for she hadn't actually thought about it. She'd just… done it, as if it were the subconscious thing that she always did.

Lizzie thought about it – and then realised. That's _why_ she'd done it. Because it was the subconscious thing she always did. Lizzie was simply being herself. Same old Lizzie Darwin. Again. Barely changed. Still a coward. The girl who couldn't bear to face Christmas – and so just decided to run from it.

"Didn't want to… rain on your parade, or whatever," Lizzie shrugged it off, as if it meant nothing.

"You're not a coward, Lizzie. We understand, though. I do." The Doctor. Reading between the lines of what she said – she felt it's what he spent half of his time doing.

Lizzie nodded. The Doctor knew she understood.

"Merry Christmas, Elizabeth Darwin."

"Merry Christmas, Doctor."

They stood, and watched the stars for a few minutes.

And then suddenly, the Doctor snapped his fingers. Lizzie looked up at him, entirely bemused – and that's when the TARDISes started to arrive. Slowly they faded into existence, just as they always did – and Lizzie felt that flare of hope rise up inside her, just as it always did.

Cioné's TARDIS appeared like a bookshelf, and she emerged carrying several paper bags. And from the iconic blue police box, Iris and Kym also came out carrying several paper bags.

"Merry Christmas, darling," Cioné walked over, and gave Lizzie a peck on the cheek. "Sorry – don't get too close, I'll get you terribly greasy, if you'll pardon the innuendo."

"Eww," Iris grimaced, dumping her set of paper bags on the kitchen table. "Mum, that's gross."

"SISTAAAA," shouted Kym, pointing at Lizzie, waiting for Lizzie to point back. Tentatively, Lizzie did as

she desired, before Kym swooped in and hugged Lizzie.

"Oh, b _loody hell_ ," came a voice from the corner of the room.

Kym gasped audibly. "O. M. G," Kym spun on her heels (a description that was, in multiple ways, quite apt), and turned to confront the individual who had just prowled down the hallway and into the living room. "ULY, MY G," Kym yelled at the cat, bouncing over to him and scooping him up into her arms.

Lizzie had never seen such an accurate grumpy-cat impersonation, as Ulysses resigned himself to being engulfed by Kym's arms. Iris giggled, and Lizzie smiled too.

She glanced over, to see Cioné fumbling through the cupboards, clattering crockery as she hunted for plates – which weren't anywhere to be seen. "Do you lot ever wash anything up?" she muttered.

"Nah," Iris slumped down on the sofa, putting her feet up on the coffee table.

"Yes," Lizzie said. "Well. I do. Ulysses dries."

At that moment, Ulysses deftly leapt down from Kym's arms, causing Kym to squeal slightly. "I do…," he murmured in his silky, dulcet tones.

"You wash things up?" Iris looked up at Lizzie, entirely confused. "I just assumed we had a lot of plates…"

Cioné gasped. "Oh my goodness, Lizzie, I am so sorry. I cannot believe my sprog's behaviour."

"Can we get a dishwasher?" Iris enquired.

By this point, the Doctor had already sat down in one of the armchairs, and was reading _The Guardian_ over the rim of his glasses. "If you behave."

"Dad, I'm 108, not 42."

"Really?" the Doctor murmured, not looking up from the crossword. "Going by your inability to wash things up, I wouldn't have realised…"

Iris looked up, laughing in shock at her father's brutality.

"O.M.G," Kym proclaimed, revelling in the Doctor's cutting remark. "Savage."

"Right everyone, grub's up," Cioné began taking the polystyrene tubs out of their paper bags. "Sorry – we've just got fish and chips, as I've just burned the turkey hauling a planet into a new orbit. It was causing a traffic jam. Ulysses, I got you a battered sausage as well."

"Uly _loves_ a battered sausage," Iris chuckled, swooping off the chair and descending for one of the polystyrene tubs and a plastic knife and fork, before returning to her undisputed place on the sofa.

"I can't think of much better," Ulysses prowled, as Lizzie came over to her armchair with a container of fish and chips for herself, and Ulysses' fish and chips (with battered sausage), placing it down on the ground in front of him.

The Doctor stood up to get his food, but before he could return, Kym had descended into his chair, leaving the Doctor looking around in dismay.

"Sorry old man!" Kym smiled breezily.

"That's the point," the Doctor said, hauling over a kitchen chair. "I am old, I need the seat."

"Kym, if you don't give it to him you'll be my best friend forever," Iris turned around and called behind her.

"Look Doc-brain," Kym explained. "You ain't been walking about in heels."

The Doctor resigned himself to not getting a seat, but smiled to himself as he opened his food and readied his plastic cutlery. Best Christmas dinner ever, he smiled to himself.

Lizzie thought the same, in fact.

Cioné now descended over to Iris, having the bravery to slump down beside her daughter on the sofa. "Budge up."

"No!" Iris protested. It was almost a statute that the entire sofa belonged to Iris, and if anybody else sat on it, they were probably going to die. However, Cioné did not care for the law, and shifted her daughter along anyway. She laughed at her mother's uncaringness, and Cioné couldn't help but chuckle too.

And this was them. Her crazy family. This lot, and Maggie too.

"Well, everyone," the Doctor stood up. "I'd like to propose a toast."

"To my sanity, hopefully…," Iris murmured.

"To a merry Christmas," the Doctor declared. "And a very happy new year."

"To a merry Christmas," they all said. "And a very happy new year."

And for the briefest of seconds, Lizzie was content.

* * *

They had all left her to it. Kym had gone off to some party down the road. Iris was out somewhere with Jada. The Doctor and Cioné had gone off to watch _Love Actually_.

And Lizzie thought that was that. It had been the most incredible time – and for someone who didn't always find Christmas the easiest of times, Lizzie certainly felt, just this once, that it had been alright.

The dilemma she'd spent so long wrestling with… she'd settled it, in her own way. And now, she could be content. So, Lizzie had taken her book, and curled up in the armchair. It could not be denied that regardless how depressed she had felt at Christmas before, that there was always something strangely peaceful about the season.

For once, Lizzie now felt at peace.

She knew it, for the fact she was alone – and she was content.

It was at that moment, however, that there was a knock on the door. If it was the Salvation Army, Lizzie would be fuming, and tell them to go away. Well. Maybe not so abruptly. She would politely tell them to leave her alone. It was, then, with great confusion, that Lizzie took herself over to the door, absolutely in the dark as to who she might be about to greet.

With nervousness, and slight trepidation, Lizzie put her hand on the door handle – and gently, she opened it.

There he was. Leo.

"Hello. I'm collecting for the Salvation Army, can I come in and tell you about the important work we do?"

Lizzie looked at him, a sarcastically miserable look on her face. He smiled, charming and a little bit cheeky, and for a few seconds she was just a little bit tempted to shut the door in his face. It was perhaps a good thing that Leo was so rubbish at keeping a straight face, and also that Lizzie was too rubbish at pretending to be angry. She held open the door, shaking her head and smiling.

"Come in."

The only time she would ever open the door to someone from the 'Salvation Army'. He followed her in, traipsing down the corridor after her, negotiating his way around Iris general piles of clutter.

There was something about the way that Leo walked, as if he were trekking into a place where he didn't belong – like the way that Lizzie walked, whenever she left the TARDIS onto some strange new world. Slight nervousness and trepidation.

She didn't want Leo to feel like that, as he made his way inside, still wearing his coat.

"Just, er…," Lizzie pointed to the coat-hooks.

"Oh, er, yeah," he took off his coat, and after a few failed attempts, hung it up. "Thanks," he said, putting his hands in his pockets as he walked into the living room – and then deciding not to put his hands in his pockets – and then re-deciding to put his hands in his pockets.

"Tea? Coffee?" Lizzie asked.

"Oh, er… not just yet."

"So…," Lizzie said, making her way over to the sofa and sitting on it. Leo did the same, though it was more of a perch, as if he felt entirely like he had to be on his best behaviour. He was only a few feet away – and yet… Lizzie felt distant. Stuck from the real him, trapped behind some walls of awkward social gesture and ritual "What can I do for you?"

Like she was in a shop. Forced, unnatural smile. Sometimes Lizzie was spellbound that she ever managed to find a job serving people in a café. Clearly the Dunsworthian employee pool had been sparse.

 _Bloody hell, Lizzie_ , she told herself. _Come on_.

"I just wanted to bring you this," Leo presented her with a gift. She took it, and awkwardly smiled.

She hated receiving gifts – she sort of… never knew how to react. Of course, 'gratefully' was the obvious answer. But it felt like a matter of course – something that Leo was doing simply because he was _doing_ it. And that was the whole thing about them.

That was why it never worked.

Because they did what _couples_ did. What all fresh-faced naïve, uncertain early-day people in relationships did. All the standard stuff, the awkwardness, the pussyfooting, as Iris had put. They walked upon the walls of the conduct of a relationship – when between the two of them, one might ask, what was there? Of course, there was something between the two of them – but what was being made of it, what sort of connection being created?

They didn't do what _they_ did. They didn't understand each other.

"Oh, er… thanks. You want me to open it now, or…"

"Whenever you want."

"Yeah, er, okay. I'll – I'll open it later."

 _No. No, you stupid girl,_ Lizzie said to herself. _He wants you to open it now. Moron._ However, no matter what protestations emerged from her brain, she put the present to the side, and turned back to Leo.

"Anyway, yeah. Wanted to bring you that. And, er… well, Iris texted me –"

Immediately, Lizzie was a little bit on edge. They had been talking about her behind her back. Again. Not a big problem. Loads of people did that. Probably. All the time. Even so – a confirmation of it only made it a little bit harder to listen to. Clearly, he either noticed a look a look on her face, or realised his very poor choice of words.

"No," he tried to backtrack, or correct himself, or whatever. It didn't work. "I mean – I was on my own. I… heard that you were on your own. And thought, well. Yeah."

"Oh. Well, er, thanks."

Lizzie was struck by that. The fact that Leo was on his own at Christmas.

"Not spending Christmas with family?" she asked, entirely intrigued.

Leo shook his head grimly. "Told them I was in Austria skiing because they're manipulative and nasty."

Lizzie was quite taken aback by his answer – it hadn't been the sort of thing she'd been expecting from someone who was usually not exactly… confrontational. For a few seconds she wasn't exactly sure what to say.

"You got rid of your manipulative parents by manipulating them?" Lizzie looked at him incredulously. "Nice."

"Eh. No worse than anything they've ever done to me."

"Hmm…," Lizzie mused.

And that's when she realised. It wasn't just… small things. Little things that they were talking about, discussing. Leo had known about it. The way she'd lied to everyone. And that's when it dawned on her – the feeling of having almost no control over any of it – everyone talking about her, discussing her, judging her and the things she did. Why would she want to be in a relationship with someone who did that?

"Wait," she looked up at him, a look of something that was… almost the feeling of having been betrayed, etched upon her face. "Iris told you that?"

"No, well –"

"Don't lie to me, Leo."

"Well, yeah."

There was something about him, then. He wasn't all sweet, and awkward, and funny. There was something sneaky about him, in that moment. Devious. Not much – but in a way, it reminded her of herself. Not that Lizzie would call herself devious… but Lizzie could lie, if she wanted to. She was good at it. And there it was – another parallel, between the two of them. One that was, perhaps, a bit darker…

"And do you talk about me often?"

 _NoLizziewhywouldyousaythatyoustupidgirl._

It wasn't meant to sound confrontational. It bloody well _did_ sound confrontational, though – but it had just slipped out.

"No, no – of course not. I was just – can we not argue? It's Christmas."

"Sorry," Lizzie said, quickly shrugging it off. In a way… Lizzie quite liked it when they argued. It made things between the two of them a little bit interesting – when, the rest of the time, they weren't.

"It's just… Liz," Leo said. "Sometimes I feel like… you're so reserved –"

 _Oh, here we go again. Blame me for having trust issues_. "Wow, Leo," she said, standing up and walking over to the kitchen, trying to increase the distance between him and her as much as possible.

" _That's_ not a low blow _at all_."

"I just think you need to be more open." Leo's response was almost like he was advising her on some essay she'd written. Some teacher having marked it, giving her feedback to act upon.

"What? Like the guy who's been talking about me with my sister behind my back?"

 _… Shit._

Lizzie realised she was getting quite confrontational. She liked it. She liked it a lot. Was this what it was like to argue? To properly argue? In fact… in the funniest of ways, she was quite getting into it. It was cathartic.

"I was looking out for you!" Leo grumbled. That typical masculine response. It was quite fitting that as he proclaimed his dutiful gallantry he stropped angry, like any male did, to the other side of the room.

"You were being weird!" Lizzie retorted back. She didn't even know what she was arguing about – but she was getting into it, whatever it was. Cathartic – why? Maybe because this had been building up inside for so long – feelings towards Leo that she just needed to… get rid of, in some way.

"Me? Being weird? Liz, I'm not the one who is quiet and socially awkward to the point of difficult –"

 _Says the person who is socially inept as hell_ , Lizzie thought, as Leo continued.

" – who spends more time watching Coronation Street than she does actually living her life."

"Well at least I don't have a nervous disposition that I don't try and hide from by making jokes about everything and trying to be a charming idiot. Seriously, Leo, 'it's always funny', there are some things you just shouldn't make jokes about."

"Well what can I do? You're not exactly a laugh a minute, you're mopey as hell."

" _Mopey as hell_!?" Lizzie realised she was full-on shouting now, but she didn't care. "Just because I have the emotional maturity to deal with more than two emotions, then yes, Leo, that's me. Mopey as hell. Also, quite frankly, don't judge what I am or what I've been through by the standards of your own, self-centred little brain. It's not all about you! Just because I'm upset doesn't mean I'm annoyed at you, I probably fell over my shoelaces or something. Seriously, don't flatter yourself."

"I just want people to be happy!"

"By what? By thinking the sun shines out of your arse, or by embracing that whole, 'oh, look at me, I'm so sweet and awkward and funny and cute and charming', act?"

"Clearly I have a stable personality. I'm not the one who won't commit to a relationship," Leo said.

"Then, for Christs' sake, just move in or something, I don't care."

 _Huh_.

Lizzie had meant to correct him on the fact that it _wasn't_ her who couldn't commit, but what she'd said instead had just sort of come out. She didn't even know _what_ she was saying now – Lizzie was just saying it – speaking how she felt. In fact, in a way… it was the first time she'd ever done it.

And Lizzie felt more alive than ever before.

"You want me to move in?"

"Yes. I do. But you're just being really, really, ann –"

Leo was laughing.

And suddenly, it fell into place. All of it – to say that the tension entirely evaporated would be too idealistic… but it was at that moment that the walls fell down. To think that once, she'd dreamed him up. But this person… he wasn't a dream. He was an entirely different, real, _alive_ , thing.

And as Leo looked up, he saw Lizzie. She was a girl who, perhaps confused her. Scared her, a little bit.

And then Lizzie started laughing as well.

"I've never seen that side to you," said Leo, laughing. Secretly, he was quite amazed

" _I've_ never seen that side to me."

They both kept laughing.

"I'm – I'm sorry," Lizzie said, murmuring through broken breaths.

"Me too," when Leo caught sight of her again, they couldn't stop. They just kept laughing, and laughing, and laughing.

Perhaps that's what they'd needed… to just shout at each other.

"Can I actually move in?" Leo said, looking a bit too excited.

"Er… sure?" Lizzie was quite shocked – they'd gone from a lull to Leo suddenly moving in. "I think?"

Should she ask Iris? She should probably ask Iris. And Ulysses. And Ky – no. No, Kym had no reason to know – Kym didn't actually live with them, although occasionally, it did feel as if she did.

"Brilliant!" Leo exclaimed. "Wow. Okay. _Wow_."

"Alright, calm down. You'd have thought Christmas had come early…," and as Lizzie said it, she realised it was a very poor choice of words, considering it _was_ actually Christmas.

Leo sniggered, and then stood up, as if waiting for something.

"So? Show me around! It'll be like an episode of… whatever it is."

" _Cribs_?" Lizzie suggested, still sat down and looking up at him like he'd lost his marbles.

"Yeah," Leo said. "Probably. I dunno, I've… not seen it."

"It's… good," Lizzie said, realising that if she told Leo she watched it he'd probably think she did nothing but watch TV. Which to be fair, was a bit true.

"Please? Just a quick tour?"

Lizzie yielded, and stood up. "Fine. It's not that exciting…"

Lizzie shifted around to the back of the sofa.

"This is the sofa," she explained. "You can't sit on it when Iris is here."

Leo looked quite unnerved.

"Don't ask, you just… can't."

"Right…"

Lizzie guided him around to their hallway, where the other rooms extended from.

"Bedrooms," Lizzie skipped over all that as quickly as possible. "Coat-rack. Shoe-rack. Bookshelves. Iris' clutter. Bathroom. Er… yeah. That's it really."

"Well. It's a lovely place, Liz."

"Yeah. It's nice enough. Oh," Lizzie pointed at the light in the bathroom. "It's temperamental. We need to get a new bulb. So don't go around, like… randomly pulling the switch thing hard or… or anything."

Lizzie walked into the centre of the flat, and stopped, leaning back on the sofa.

"Yeah. That's it."

Leo sort of… hovered. Lizzie had noticed he had quite a way of doing that… wanting to say something, but never quite saying it. Again – another thing that she found herself doing a lot.

"Ten minutes ago… you were shouting your head off at me? What changed? Am I dreaming? I mean, wow, if you were in by dream, I don't know, I'd be… yeah," he started laughing.

It was a question that had been bugging him. Some… niggling insecurity. He had a lot of those… and he needed them put to bed.

Lizzie shrugged, pretending not to know the answer. In reality, she did. When she'd been having a go at him… she'd seen him for who he was. Maybe that was why she got so caught up in it… but now, Lizzie felt she understood Leo in a way she hadn't before. That she grasped his insecurities, his quirks, and his intricacies. He understood her, what she had been through. He found a lot in life to laugh about, perhaps because otherwise, the world was just too dark. She had seen a sort of… cowardice brewing in him, and the occasional flash of egocentricity as well.

"I don't want to do this, Lizzie, if it's going to put too much strain on you."

But she also saw the way that he had a heart. Leo tried to get things right, even if he couldn't always manage it.

"I dunno," Lizzie lied. That was a habit she needed to get out of. "I mean – you're not dreaming. I think. Probably."

She paused, and then walked over to the kitchen.

"Tea? Coffee?"

"Tea would be lovely."

Lizzie pottered over to the cupboard, and took out the teabags. "I think," she said hesitantly. "Iris said it earlier. I think… we're not pussyfooting anymore."

"Pfft," Leo sniggered, also seemingly tickled by the word. Everyone was, apparently. Lizzie also found it faintly amusing – though Leo's amusement made her laugh more.

"Don't laugh at me," Lizzie smiled and turned away at the same time, as she fumbled around for the teapot. "What I mean, is…, " she tried to find the words. She wasn't sure they would make any sense. "I think…"

Oh… it just wasn't going her way.

"I understand you," she admitted. "That's it. You're not just a scary image of something…"

"… scary person?" he chuckled.

"… that I go out for dinner with occasionally, and sometimes go to the cinema with. You're an actual real… person. I think before, I loved the idea of a relationship."

The dream of it.

"… whereas now," Lizzie continued. "I think…"

Those were the words.

"I think now, I love you."

They stopped, in the middle of the kitchen. Lizzie even put the teapot down on the counter, just so she could wait for what he had to say. There we go – that was clearly the start of something. Not many people Lizzie would delay tea production for.

Leo was about to say it – or at least, say what she thought he was going to say. So she stopped him.

"Don't say it – I don't want it to be something you just… reply to. I had to say it then, because I had to accept it. I don't ever want those words to become something we just… say for the sake of it."  
Leo nodded. He understood. He always seemed to understand.

She reached up, gently put a hand on his face. For a few seconds, she just stared at him. Then, she kissed him.

"Merry Christmas, Liz," he said to her.

"Merry Christmas, Leo."

Then Lizzie walked back over to the kettle, which she removed from its stand and put under the sink, where she began to fill it with water.

"Where'd you keep the biscuits?" Leo asked.

"Er… top cupboard, there on the left."

"Thanks...," he murmured, as he slunk past her as she moved around him to start boiling the water.

Leo opened the cupboard, where he saw the biscuits, loitering at the back. He fumbled for them, but accidentally knocked over two packets of pasta in the process and a stray pot noodle (Iris had taken quite a liking to them). "Oops," he muttered, trying to sort out the cupboard. Lizzie thought it was quite nice being the more coordinated of the two of them.

"Just balance them back up again. Actually – what's the use-by date on that pot noodle?"

Leo glanced at it, the gasped. "Two-years ago."

They hadn't even been living in that flat for two months, let alone two years.

"Bin it," Lizzie grimaced. "Like… right now."

Leo did as he was told, and then went back to fishing out the biscuits. Meanwhile, the little switch on the kettle popped, and Lizzie took it off, before pouring the boiling water into the mugs. And as she did so, everything around her began to blend into something strange, and menial, and… constant.

The monotony of every-day life, the sort of constancy she'd wanted to escape from with Leo.

Except… this time. It wasn't bad.

This time, it was good. Because this wasn't them… lulling, or pussyfooting, or anything of the sort.

Now, Lizzie was content. Because she loved him – and because of that, the simple act of doing the simple things of living, felt so much more… real. So much more alive.

And finally, Lizzie felt happy at Christmas. It was okay for her to feel sad at Christmas – but this year, she felt she had been accepted. That she had been loved.

And not only by Leo Akram – although, of course, he made her so very happy.

But Lizzie felt like she had been loved by everyone. In this crazy year of her life, she had met the Doctor, who had shown her what it meant to feel alive. She had met Cioné, and her quirkiness. And Iris, too – her sister – although not biologically, but what did blood ties mean? All of it, along with Maggie's guidance, and Kym's audaciousness, and Ulysses' wit.

Leo making her happy.

And that was it. Lizzie felt loved. And while the year had its ups and downs, at least Lizzie could, quite certainly, say that.

As Lizzie poured the tea, she glanced out of her window.

She saw the Christmas lights, lighting up the world.


	20. The Lost on their Empty Worlds

_It was some tiny little world, marooned somewhere on the edge of the universe. Dark and dank, the planet was obscured behind an asteroid belt – so daylight lasted for but five minutes a day, and even that was just a smidge away from the 1,435 minutes of night, as the planet was obscured with a layer of natural thick, choking, black clouds._

 _The world had become covered in an infinite sprawling forest –not a forest with rich earth, and proud, strong trees with green, sunlit leaves, the light streaming through and spattering hope upon the thick blanket of undergrowth and bracken. There were no clean rivers, glowing a tranquil aqua in the sunshine, flowing through the woods and bringing life to a million species of fishes, and insects and mammals beside the banks, mushrooming into a forest shining bright with light and life and calm._

 _Instead, the forest was black, decayed, and dead. There was a thick network of trees, but because of the planet's darkness, their leaves were stained black and grimy, and the only light that streamed to the ground was gloomy and murky, choking the undergrowth – and yet, as if almost in reaction, a sprawling web of vines and creepers extended across the forest floor, latching onto the greenery and turning it into a grubby scrubland, populated by thin, brittle trees. Several filthy rivers churned through the planet, ploughing through dusty, chalky dirt, teeming with a billion diseases. The planet reeked, the smell of mould and rot and fungus infecting the entire surface, cell by cell and leaf by leaf, corrupting everything with its horrific stench._

 _There was very little life on the planet. There were wolves, their thick coats stained and muddied, their eyes shining red as they hunted out their prey – small, scuttling mammals that through a scraping desperation to survive, had evolved enough to consume the infected, diseased water, and to eat the bugs and worms that imbedded themselves in the dirt. It was a sick planet. Even when the rain fell, it was not simply water. A complex arrangement of the elements, to form something akin to gasoline. And so, when it drenched the planet, it would kill the life that the rain should normally nourish. The rain should make things grow. This rain was a poison._

 _There was no civilisation on the planet. Except, there was a house. A manor house, broken and dilapidated, a fading memory of a time there had been people living in the forest. Now, the wood was crumbling, infested with lice and insects, and the plaster and wallpaper was peeling and disintegrating. Inside the house, where there were carpets, they were faded and frayed, some of them had even decomposed completely, exposed to the lifeless elements. Several parts of the bottom of the house had been damaged completely, leaving only the dusty surface of the Earth as a ground-floor._

 _There were remnants of furniture in the house – very little, but there was an old, wooden table, frail under its age, but useable. A wooden chair sat beside, lonely, just as its occupant would be, as there was nothing else for anybody else – a room that now, would only be fitting for one person. Perhaps another to stay occasionally, judging by another chair, mismatched against the other. The only other item in the house was a musty, unclean mattress, perhaps recently pinched out the back of a skip and tossed into the house, with no concept of who it was to be used by. It waited in the master suite – which did not deserve that name, as it was in a similar state of disrepair to the rest of the house. A fragmented grand staircase loosely paved the way to the landing, individual stairs hanging off, and holes crushed into it._

 _And from the landing, one could look out the remnants of a great window. It was long shattered, allowing the stinking winds would blow through the house, freezing any occupant who had the misfortune of staying there. The old panes of glass were smashed, sharp shards jutting out to slice at anyone who should let their skin get caught in their teeth – and one might be tempted to do that. To just stride through that window, allowing the splinters to tear the skin into ribbons, before they fell, so far, to the ground, and their bones would shatter, just as the window had._

 _There would be nobody to find them, nobody to save them._

 _Death would greet them._

 _But there had been nobody to greet death. Nobody to step through the window, nobody to use the matress, nobody to use the lonely chair._

 _Until that night._

 _The Doctor walked through the forest, his TARDIS parked far away, just to ensure the people he was meeting would be unable to get their hands on it. As he walked through the undergrowth, the Doctor felt the chill in the air nipping at him, and then biting deep into his skin. So, he pulled his coat closer to him, and he sped up the pace with which he walked. He could see the house ahead of him – the house he'd been summoned to._

 _The house he'd been summoned to by his own people._

 _By the Time Lords._

 _He had no idea what for – the rendezvous was secret to everyone, apart from those involved. He had been forbidden to tell any of his loved ones – and now that he had a family, the Doctor was not willing to risk it. He had responsibilities, now. He had to tread carefully, and with every step he took, he would have to consider the extent of the consequences – for Lizzie, for Cioné… and above all, for Iris._

 _The Doctor was always terrified of meetings with his own people, although he would never dare to admit it. They had a troubled relationship, and whenever he was summoned, there was always that slight, nagging fear that he would not come back. So, before he left, he'd held Iris in his arms, and kissed her. Too small to know what was going on, just a tiny baby, with the whole universe raging above her head. And with that kiss, the Doctor hoped, that he would come back. That he would see his little girl grow up._

 _He wanted nothing more than that._

 _They were already there, it seemed, waiting outside the house. Waiting for him. There were a few of them, the guards dressed in a subtler garb to the usual, ornate Gallifreyan attire. This was a meeting that nobody was meant to see, that was meant to pass undetected into history… that would be forgotten about._

 _Most strikingly, and most intriguingly… one of the guards held a white object, visible in stark contrast to the gloominess of the world around them. As the Doctor got closer, he realised that he was looking at a sort of… cradle. A travel-cot._

 _At the front of his Gallifreyan reception party, stood a man, dressed impeccably in a suit and tie. He exuded an air of authority, command… and terror. Although the Doctor had never seen him… he knew exactly who the man was._

 _"I am honoured, it seems." The Doctor spoke sarcastically, with a mocking tongue. He had nothing but contempt for this man. And at the same time, the Doctor knew he had to play his cards carefully… the man he was faced with, meant that whatever business this was, was going to be very, very serious. The Doctor was also acutely aware that if he got on the wrong side of the person in front of him, it could lead to catastrophic consequences._

 _"You know the severity of the business at hand," the man spoke simply, his voice clear, cold, and clipped._

 _"Faced with you, Not-Applicable? Of course." The Doctor knew it was him. He was the highest ranking general in the Gallifreyan secret police – and he was known by the name 'Not-Applicable', simply as he did not need a name. He was order, running subliminally beneath the streets. He was oppression, keeping an unyielding grasp on everyone who lived on the planet – but a grasp so secret, so subtle, that barely anybody noticed when they were being constantly controlled and manipulated._

 _But everybody knew who he was, for everybody, barring his superiors, were simply his puppets, and he pulled the strings, so slightly and shrewdly. He operated quietly, delicately, but coldly effectively. There was no fuss, there was no big scene, there was no noise. If Not-Applicable was coming for you, one night, you would be there. And the next, you would simply disappear, as if you had never existed._

 _"May I ask, what am I doing here?" the Doctor questioned, bristling slightly at Not-Applicable's lack of any visible response. One might feel safer when he displayed some kind of emotion… or at least, more assured of where the conversation was going._

 _Not-Applicable gestured to the travel cot._

 _"This is the child of –"_

* * *

 **London, 2018 – 13:30PM**

"Hmm, I'm starving," Cioné began to scoff her way through the giant steak on the platter in front of her, the chips eyeing her up gleefully from the side of the plate. The Doctor looked down at his chicken Caesar salad, and then looked off the balcony of the restaurant, at the passers-by milling around the riverside beneath them. It was a rather beautiful day, and the sun streamed down the tree-lined boulevard, shining on the families strolling past the river, and the content old couple meandering past a boutique, and the group of teenagers huddled around a bench. And then the sun glinted on the sharp surface of the river, making it shimmer in the golden, midday light, and turning it into a mirror – a universe where this riverside happiness was the only world, and where nobody had any demons to worry about.

"I need to tell you something," the Doctor said, as his eyes turned away from the river to look at his wife. She looked so beautiful, sat there in the sun. And there was part of him that wished he would never have to talk about what he was about to – because then that world could've stayed perfect for just a little bit longer. But he knew, in his heart, that that could not be the case. He would have to confront what needed to be confronted, and he couldn't hold it off longer. If he did, it would grow, it would get darker and scarier. And above all? Cioné had a right to know.

"Oh?" Cioné murmured through a mouthful of chip. They did lovely chips there. That was why she loved it so much. And… she knew that her husband enjoyed it as well. And right then, that was perhaps what they needed, although she didn't know it. Perhaps being in the restaurant would make it easier. Because the Doctor knew that what he was about to say would shock her. In fact – maybe it would change her opinion of him forever.

Easier for her. Not for him. When she'd seen the look in her husband's eyes, she wondered whether that was a good thing. She was scared, when she looked up and saw it. For most spouses, the simple words, 'I need to tell you something', were ominous enough. Cioné hadn't been unnerved – but as she'd looked up and seen the look of trepidation, and something… something akin to fear – present in his eyes – that was when she was unnerved.

That was when she knew something was wrong.

"Iris talked about her once," the Doctor started. Immediately, Cioné's mind started going. He wasn't having an affair, was he? No. No, the look on his face suggested something much worse. The Doctor paused, and she could've spoken – so often, she would've done. Slipped in a quick joke, or something. But the way he looked up at her… this was not a time for joking.

"This girl…," the Doctor said, his voice trailing off. "Emma."

Cioné thought about it. She couldn't put her finger on it…

"Oh!"

Yes. She could remember.

"Yes – that girl Iris and Lizzie got to find out… information or something on Cullengate? They showed me a picture of her – red lippy, pasty, that sort of thing."

The Doctor nodded grimly. Cioné stopped trying to be so glib. But then her husband didn't say anything, and so she kept talking. She couldn't stop herself.

"I just… assumed she was some… private detective, and I thought, well, if she agreed to help the girls' find out about Cullengate for _free_ , it might be useful in the long run, I – I – I didn't recognise her –"

The Doctor interrupted her. He spoke clipped, and coldly, and the very words sent a shiver down Cioné's spine.

"But I did."

The Doctor couldn't look at her – his eyes flitted around to every other location possible. He knew that if he did dare to look at his wife, all she'd be able to see was the look of guilt in his eyes. But, Cioné kept staring at him – she couldn't take her eyes off him. He'd recognised her – he knew who she was, and he hadn't said anything. Why hadn't he said anything? And, with her eyes locked firmly onto him, eventually his face gravitated back to her.

The Doctor knew he had to look her in the eye. Cioné deserved that.

And as he _did_ look her in the eye, Cioné saw it. A look of confession.

"Who was she?" Cioné asked.

"Emma…," the Doctor said her name, like he was trying to make sense of it – a word, undefined, that he didn't really… get. It was, sort of, the truth. But in reality, he was playing for time. Trying to find the words to explain himself, and also trying to delay having to reveal the truth. Emma. The private detective. The consulting assassin. "A long time ago…"

"Just – Doctor, tell me who she is. To you."

"Do you remember the Master, Cioné?"

Cioné stopped. She knew the Master. Not like the Doctor did, but the Master was one of those Gallifreyans with a reputation. A bit like the Doctor – a renegade Time Lord, insane, hell-bent on destruction – and not just because they liked the destruction. Because they found it beautiful. Always played nicely off the Doctor. One saw the universe and loved it. The other saw the end of it, and loved it.

And, in a way… the Doctor's best friend. No… something different to that. Something a little bit… more.

But the Master was dead.

"I – I know of them. Why?"

And that's when Cioné realised. That's when it all started falling into place. The Master was dead. But a grey, private detective, consulting assassin – ruthless and efficient, independent and… terrifying. It made sense. Maybe that was why Emma had taken such an interest in Iris. A distorted reflection of herself. And… the Doctor and the Master, held in a strange, sickening balance, them both being the close, childhood friends they were… maybe that was why.

Because everyone left a legacy behind.

As Cioné looked up at the Doctor, she was almost certain of what he was going to say.

He spoke.

"Emma… Emma is the Master's daughter." **  
**

* * *

 _ **A Long Time Ago**_

 _"The Master is dead," Not-Applicable said, more of a statement than a question, as he knew that the Doctor would have known._

 _"I know…"_

 _"Before her death, she had a child."_

 _A shiver crept down the Doctor's spine, and the air around him felt a little bit colder. Of course… the Doctor and the Master had once done everything together. Why was it a surprise that they would have children at the same time? And yet, the Doctor was the only one left, the legacy of the sibling-like presence in his life lying in front of him in a cradle. He caught sight of the baby, looking up at the black, empty sky, so innocent, so sweet._

 _And he felt a pang in both his hearts, a strange cocktail of emotions rising through him. It was heartbreaking, that the Master wouldn't see her child growing up. So, the Doctor felt a strange kind of loyalty, of devotion, to the child. And above all, he felt hopeful, dreaming that he might be able to stop baby going the same way as mother. Someone with an impossible potential… but someone who had wasted it, gorging on death and destruction and pain. The Doctor thought, perhaps, that he could help the little baby, to raise them into what the Master always could have been._

 _To help them._

 _"A girl, given the shortened name 'Emma'. Born not long ago, a similar time to your own infant. Until now, she resided in an orphanage. Your orphanage. However, as she grows… she will need another residence."_

 _Not-Applicable gestured, and the guard with the cradle stepped forward, and passed it over to the Doctor. He took it, and quickly took the girl into his arms, placing the cradle on the floor. Emma was stirring, and her eyes briefly flickered open. It was like a punch to the gut – as the eyes staring up at him were those of the Master. And yet… they were different in their emptiness, their innocence. An open book, ready to be written. The Doctor, with his Dad-skills, held her and quickly soothed her back to sleep. Now was the time for sleep. The questions could come later._

 _Not-Applicable asked a simple question._

 _"Will you protect it?"_

 _As if there were no doubt about it all, the Doctor said, "I'll try and keep her safe, yes."_

 _"No," Not-Applicable replied bitterly, filled with nothing but contempt for the Time Lord and the child opposite. "The universe. Will you protect it from this child?"_

 _Horror spread through the Doctor – Emma was just a baby, she couldn't harm anything or anyone – and so he held Emma closer, as if protecting her from the people opposite. "What do you mean by that?" the Doctor questioned._

 _"This is the daughter of the greatest mind, and the greatest psychopath, Gallifrey ever produced. She cannot be allowed to roam free."_

 _"Why not?" the Doctor protested. Emma was her own person, she wasn't just a carbon copy of her mother. Who were the Time Lords to think that? Of course genetics had a bearing, but above all, nurture. That was what made a person who they were._

 _Not-Applicable ignored him. "The girl will reside here, in this property," he gestured to the crumbling mansion. "She will live alone, and you will visit her regularly. You will watch her, you will ensure that in her mental state, she poses no threat to creation."_

 _The Doctor gazed grimly at the squalor around him. Each breath he took was a struggle, the putrid gases filling up his lungs and draining the life out of him. And there was barely any life around, the miserable landscape reduced to nothing by death and despair and decay. It was bad enough to leave a young child on their own – especially here, for this was no planet for a child. "I can't keep her here, especially not alone."_

 _"The girl will be observed," Not-Applicable continued. "We will see how a Gallifreyan child survives when left purely to their own devices. You will provide the human element. With your regular visits, we can examine her interactions with others. Furthermore, you will assist in developing communicative and social functions."_

 _The Doctor shook his head then, knowing that he couldn't be part of such an… experiment. He looked down at the child in his arms… there was no way he would allow it to happen._

 _And, as if Not-Applicable had read the Doctor's mind, he said,_

 _"The Master was the greatest Gallifreyan mind to ever exist. How fitting that her daughter should contribute towards Time Lord science. A Monitor device has been implanted in her head. This allows us to watch her every move. Furthermore, if you ever attempt to take her from this world, we can detonate the Monitor, killing the child in an instant."_

 _The Doctor would not be part of this. He had not always got along with the Master, obviously. In fact, universes that been born, and had died, over the years of their conflict – but at the heart of it, the Doctor and the Master… they had a strange relationship that perhaps nobody would ever be able to grasp. And now the Master was dead, the Doctor felt a strange loyalty, to ensure that he didn't… corroborate with such a scheme, a scheme disgracing her memory – the memory that lived on with her children._

 _Perhaps he felt this now, stronger than he ever would have done before, because he was a father. The lengths he would go, to protect Iris._

 _The lengths he would go to…_

 _It was then, that he had an idea. A bit crazy, a bit reckless... in fact, perhaps it wasn't even the right thing to do. But with it, he could save Emma. He could let the Master's memory live on… and he could help raise her daughter into what the Master always could have been._

 _"Fine," the Doctor laid Emma gently down in the cot. "I'll do it – regular visits, yes? Weekly sound okay?"_

 _"Yes," said Not-Applicable, admittedly slightly suspicious that the Doctor was so open to the idea. "Be aware, Doctor. If you play games, I will kill you. I will kill your human plaything. I will kill your wife. I will kill your infant daughter."_

 _"I understand," the Doctor said, trying to hide his shaking breath. They were only threats, but against his family? That in itself was chilling. And, he knew Not-Applicable's power, so the words cut deep. He knew he was going to have to be subtle… there was so much at stake here. So much he was risking. And yet… he didn't have a choice. There was a lonely child, one who needed his help. In fact, the Master was his greatest friend, his greatest enemy, his greatest rival. One might see him as an uncle to Emma._

 _The Doctor knew what he had to do._

 _"This is confidential, Doctor," Not-Applicable instructed. "Just as our meeting. You will communicate about this with nobody."_

 _"Of course," the Doctor agreed, knowing he had little choice._  
 _"We are taking no chances with this operation. The ultimate experiment, leaving a Gallifreyan child alone in the wild. There is little, Doctor, that is as secret as this."_

 _And as if to prove his point, within seconds, Not-Applicable held a gun in his hand. He turned, and within seconds, shot his five guards dead. The ultimate proof, that Not-Applicable was not just a man in control, not just a man who had the power to oppress. He was a man unafraid of doing the dirty work himself. Unafraid of personally exercising that power._

 _"Remember what I have told you."_

 _The Doctor didn't think he would ever forget those threats. And so he watched, with great contempt, as the man strode away into the forest, before picking up the cradle, and holding it close to him._

 _He turned, to look at the giant, looming, skeleton house, alone in the death, in the dark. He looked down at Emma, and he knew that in his life, there would be little making him feel as guilty as this. A girl, the same age as his daughter… but hidden away, part of an experiment. He scooped Emma out of the cradle, and kissed her forehead._

 _"I'm so sorry," he whispered. "I truly am."_

 _He wanted to say something else, he wanted to reassure her – but he didn't know whether the Time Lords were already watching, so he stayed quiet._

 _But to himself, he pledged it. Although he could not hate himself more for complying, he kept reassured, in the knowledge that if this went to plan, the experiment would be for nothing. In the long term, the people looking down upon them would be in no doubt, that they had got this wrong._

 _Holding Emma close, they stepped inside._

* * *

 **London, 2018 – 10:30AM**

"That's completely ridiculous, why would he do that? I mean, blowing up the car, that's just… well, nonsensical!"

Cioné watched the TV from over the rims of her glasses, feeling the bubbling irritation of her daughter beside her.

"Err, because they controlled his whole life, perhaps?" Iris' sarcasm was evident – in fact, Iris' sarcasm seemed to balloon whenever watching television with either of his parents. There was just something… naturally irritating, at a parent's inability to sit and watch television.

Thankfully, her dad seemed to be much more up to speed with it, as he sat in one of the arm chairs, K9 at his feet. "You wouldn't just sit there and do nothing," he shook his head.

"Alright!" Cioné raised her arms defensively, as both her husband and daughter mounted their assault at her inability to understand whatever trite they were enduring on the television. Of course, all of it was done in jest, and they were all laughing throughout. General family banter. Just… family.

Lizzie watched on, with a bittersweet smile. It was, perhaps, something she felt regularly, whenever watching the Doctor and his family. The outsider… never a part of any of it, but always watching on. Lizzie had felt a little bit like that, all her life. Perhaps it stemmed from the loneliness, but… who knew? She didn't need to be alone to feel so, it was a feeling she got, as she trudged through existence… that even with people around her, she _was_ alone. It wasn't a thing that bugged her constantly, a lot of the time, she could laugh along with the Doctor, and Iris, and Cioné, and feel as if she were part of them. But there were moments, where she would zoom out – and it would be as if she were looking in on the world.

That was why Leo had been so completely wonderful. Leo Akram made her feel… not outside. He made her feel as if she were living, as if she were there. He was sat munching miserably (a miserableness quite part of his personality) through a bowl of cereal. Leo smiled up at her, and he looked solitary, and by-himself, but… he seemed as if he were happy, simply because she was there. That was the weird thing about loneliness. You didn't need to be alone to experience it. In fact, Lizzie was quite comfortable being alone, she loved it, it was her favourite place to be. But when immersed in a group of people… that was when she felt saddest. As if everyone were simply passing her by. Often solitude was a good place for her, but… occasionally, she wanted something more.

And Leo had helped with that. The two of them, against the universe. It had all got so much easier since he'd been around, there had been so much less of that… distance between her and everyone else. But it would still strike her – after all, there were wounds Lizzie simply couldn't heal for good.

"Look, come on, both of you, out."

When Lizzie looked up, she saw Iris herding her parents off the sofa, and guiding them towards the door. She was putting the plan into action, as they had agreed. Granted, Lizzie wasn't sure how good Iris' excuse for them leaving was – a rogue Vervoid in a Victoria Secret outlet – but it would do. And Cioné seemed quite willing to go – knowing her, she'd probably guessed what was going on.

"Are you… sure?" the Doctor, admittedly rather reluctantly, backed out of the door. Cioné trailed behind him, trying to look over her husband's shoulders, as if trying to salvage whether her guesses were correct.

"Yep, absolutely, please, go, enjoy being in love, or whatever," Iris walked further and further, until her mother and father were retreating down the stairs. Both of them knew Iris was lying, because Iris was a rubbish liar. But both of them seemed willing to comply, perhaps because they were naïve, or because they were both aware that arguing with their daughter was not something either of them had the willpower to do. "Okay bye!" Iris waved, slamming the flat's front door in their faces. They heard the door lock, and then that was that. They were trapped outside.

The Doctor reached into his pocket, pulling out his sonic screwdriver. Cioné, however, quickly put her hand on his arm and lowered it. "Darling, they're busy."

"Doing what?"

"Organising our anniversary party. Come on!"

"Right…"

"Yes, I know. Anniversary parties, not our thing. But it's lovely for them to be so wonderful, so let's leave them to it. We should have lunch?" she suggested, taking the Doctor by the arm as they walked out onto the street. What she didn't mention, was that she had ulterior motives herself. Something she needed to discuss with him.

"Sounds wonderful. There's that riverside place we tried once?"

"Absolutely, let's go."

What Cioné had not realised, was that the anniversary party was a half-ruse in itself. Yes, of course they were going to be giving them the most spectacular anniversary shindig ever, but they were also going to be getting up to something a little bit untoward. Leo had been shepherded in as lookout, and he gestured to them when the Doctor and Cioné were turning at the end of the road, making their way to the underground station.

"Awesomesauce," Iris suddenly leapt off the sofa, and bounded over to the far corner of the kitchen. There, she tapped thin-air, and the air beside her rippled, the faint outline of a blue box shimmering into existence.

"Invisibility. Cute, huh?"

"Erm, yeah," Leo nodded along, his love of sci-fi fascinated by the spectacle. He had other things on his mind – he was about to spend the day with Kym Gomez, planning an anniversary party with the terrifying girl from next door who had nearly deafened him several times. And it was as if on cue, that she burst into the flat.

"YOU CALLED THE RIGHT GAL," Kym screamed, striding into the flat with an admirable enthusiasm. "What've we got so far, guys?"

Lizzie, as she took her coat from the back of the chair, sheepishly gestured to the small bits of planning that they'd done for the anniversary. "Erm… that."

When Kym danced over and quickly scanned over the documentation, she turned to Lizzie, a look of terror plastered across her face.

"What the hell is this." Kym said it not as a question, but a vacant, terrified statement.

"Planning…," Lizzie's voice drained away as she said it, as her lack of understanding of planning big events became evident, and she felt guilty for clearly leaving so much for Kym to do.

"I can't plan with this, Lizzworth," she side-lined the papers, and whipped out her phone – the ultimate party-planning device. Kym was quite certain that with such a powerful device in her hands, she would be able to provide the most ultimate outer space event thingy for her favourite outer-space married couple. Lizzie's documentation was feeble in comparison to the might of Kym's party planning brain. "We need to start again," she declared, before her voice trailed off. "Oh….."

Lizzie looked at Kym, who had just looked at Leo for the first time.

"He's adorbs," Kym muttered wistfully.

"Oh, erm, er…," Leo spluttered, like a rabbit caught in headlights, before stumbling into the kitchen.

"He's beautiful," Kym repeated, her eyes wide, as if struggling to contemplate how attractive the awkward little nerd guy was.

You know," Iris said, leading back against the TARDIS. "You talk, and all I hear is bluuuuuuuuuurrghhhh."

"Right, yeah," Kym got her mind back on the job. This party was not going to plan itself. In fact, although she would not admit it to Lizzie, Kym believed that this party would work better if Kym were the sole orchestrator of events. Lizzie was not a sociable person, and her influence might not be hugely appreciated in the light of such a deeply complex task. "Babes, I can handle this from here. You both go do whatever it is you have to do."

A look of trepidation spread across Lizzie's face, as she tentatively walked towards the TARDIS, looking back at the flat in its current state, savouring the memory of her lovely ordered place, before Kym did whatever she was going to do to it. Of course, her stomach was a pit of nerves anyway, churning and twisting, as she knew what was about to happen. But leaving all of her possessions in a flat which Kym was going to be 'working her magic on', was also a little bit terrifying.

"Okay well… I don't know how long we'll be. Actually, maybe a while. I'm not sure, but… good luck, yeah?"

Kym seemed extremely nonchalant about the whole thing. Leo was stood beside her, paralysed with fear – even more so when Kym yanked her arm around him. Lizzie caught Leo's eye, and she struggled not to laugh at her boyfriend's awkwardness, which reminded her so much of herself.

"Don't look at my laptop," Iris spun into the TARDIS, with Lizzie following her close behind.

At the end of the universe, where all the planets and the stars and the people had stopped, there was Mountain.

No determiners have been dropped. The mountain on Mountain was so huge, and vast, and gigantic, that it is the origin of the word 'mountain'. Everyone calls mountains 'mountains', because of the name of the planet. The extensive, immense mountain on the planet's surface, occupied the entire world with its huge, infinitesimal rockiness, before peaking at a point higher than all of the peaks in the Milky Way put together.

As it lies at the edge of everything, looking out over the void, that boundless darkness, where nothing ever has or ever will live, one can stand and feel so tiny and insignificant and random in the face of the universe. People who looked over the edge of the world often felt so miniature, it would strike them how desolate, and solitary, the whole universe is. In an infinite plane of blackness and emptiness and nothingness… there we are. And in the scale of all that emptiness… well, the universe is nothing. And the people who watch the void often felt so small.

On that day, upon Mountain, a band of weary, ragtag, patchwork travellers trudged through the snows. They wore torn clothes and muddy furs, and some covered their heads in bandanas, while some wore cloaks, the hoods pulled tightly over their heads. Their supplies were carried upon an armada of braying donkeys being led behind – there were less of them than they'd started off with. A few of them had been slaughtered, to provide food for the expedition.

So, it would come as no surprise the times were hard. The blizzard had stopped, after raging all night and all day. Several of their people had died last night, the frostbite driving deep into them – not just their physical bodies, but their minds. The cold would tear the skin apart, and from that, it would creep into the mind. And when the cold was in the mind – often that was curtains for the sufferer. Gradually, their willpower, their desire, their hope, to carry on, would freeze, just like their body. And when the hope was drained… they often gave up, allowing the ice to take them.

The days were bleak, the nights were bleaker. There was a thick sense of depression and misery pungent in the air. What had started off as a joyous, optimistic adventure, had quickly turned into something rife with upset and despair. None of them wanted to continue, as under the light of the stars, and under the sight of everything that didn't exist, they all believed they were insignificant.

But still they trudged on – for what other choice was there? They could kick over and die now, or they could kick over and die later, when perhaps, they'd discovered something interesting.

And perhaps, it was that night, that something interesting was about to happen.

One of the men beckoned the travellers over, and quickly they'd all waded over the snows and crags and rocks to a snowy bank, over which they saw something quite majestic.

A vast plateau of rock stretched out far away from them, like the polished marble surface of a kitchen counter – but in this case, it was enormous, perhaps the size of a football pitch. Spaced evenly along the sides of the flatness were outcroppings of rock, with eloquent carvings chiselled into each.

Their leader, a broad-shouldered, gruff man in his 50s called Urshak, gestured for them to step backwards. This was his expedition, he had led them through these tough times – so, he believed it was only right that he should be the first person to examine this marvel of nature. He knew what it was, of course. As someone who had dedicated their lives to dragging expeditions to the most distant, most remote parts of the universe, he knew what he was talking about.

"This is the Table of the Gods," Urshak spoke, his voice trembling in the cold. He knelt down, and ran his hand over the smoothness of the marble. "The legends tell of a God, who awoke from an age-old slumber, and destroyed an army of heroes."

"Yeah, sorry, that was me," called out a voice at the back of the parade. It definitely wasn't the voice of any of the men Urshak had recruited, and when he turned, he saw the figure pull down their hood, revealing a thick, flowing mane of brunette hair – it was, god forbid, a girl!

"It was New Year's Day," the girl continued. "The night had been rowdy, I did apologise, but I told the High Priestess to be careful about leaving the rest of the chocolate out."

"She did," spoke another woman, pulling down her hood. This one was different… shier, nervous – but still, definitely not one of the men Urshak had recruited. "I was there," she added.

The first woman continued.

"And if your next story is about the High Commander of the Guard and his humiliation, that was my mother. Strip poker."

Gasps erupted from around the troops, who had spent so long plodding up this almighty mountain surface, only to be confronted by such idiocy amongst their own ranks.

"Yes," continued the woman. "It was just as traumatic for me."

Urshak growled, not pleased with being taken for a fool. "Who _are_ you?"

The second woman spoke, and as she did, a chill, very different to that of the usual biting cold, ran through all of their bones.

"I'm Lizzie Darwin, this is Iris, and we're the one hope you've got of surviving tonight."


	21. The Wolf

_Anybody would call her a miracle, but only those aware of the remits of Gallifreyan physiology would know it to be anything but. The baby, left alone on that forgotten, stinking world, with the howling wolves outside, shrouded always in darkness, with nothing to eat, nothing to learn from, nothing to understand… and yet somehow, she grew. For Gallifreyans seem to just… push on. No matter how extreme the conditions are, no matter how close to death they may be, the genetic make-up of that age-old species seemed to always have survival as its priority… as if, even when the individual wanted nothing more than to give up, their bodies forced them to plough onwards._

 _The baby survived. Crawling through the mud and the slime, she somehow just… existed, no matter the force of the conditions against her. In the freezing cold, in the rain that slashed through the empty shell of the house she lived in, in the gales and hurricanes and thrashing winds, the child would be resilient, never giving up and never giving in – as a child, her Gallifreyan nature inspiring nothing but dogged determination and grit. She lived in filth and squalor, and yet somehow, she was impervious to disease or infection._

 _It was not long before the baby was discovered by a wolf. A mother herself, the wolf began to feed the child with her wolf's milk, allowing the child to grow stronger, and bigger. And eventually, the child would slither through the muck, biting at any insects daring to poke their heads through the soil. The wolf kept feeding her, and child kept growing, kept adapting, kept understanding, until she could crawl, and her tiny hands would turn through the muck, and grab insects and worms for her to chew on._

 _Eventually, there came a day when something changed within the child. It was sucking away at the wolf, and then with no forewarning, with no deep desire or knowing of what she was doing, she reacted. Perhaps it was a natural, primal instinct. Perhaps it was genetics, or the child's personality, beginning to poke through. Perhaps, having lived the first months of her life in such brutal, harsh conditions, something had stuck with her, a knowing that to survive, she would have to adapt._

 _Therefore… now she was strong enough, she had no choice._

 _The child lurched forward, and dug her teeth in the underbelly of the animal, ploughing her teeth into the wolf's flesh and sinew and muscle. And then, she tore, a giant chunk of meat unplugging itself from the body, and into Emma's jaw. Hot, sticky blood sloshed from the wound, splashing all over the child, as she rolled out of the way, the wolf's body dropping to the ground with a thud, and a slight spatter, as its belly sprawled in its own blood._

 _All it could bear to do was raise its head slightly, and look around her. Emma listened as the wolf whimpered and whined, but there was no temptation to stop, no desire to let the wolf lived. There was something driving her, telling her that she had to go through with it – and it was so natural that Emma didn't even stop to consider the processes behind it._

 _Emma tossed the meat chunk to the ground, and placed her tiny hand on the thick wolf's neck, clamping it to the ground, before she thrust her jaw into the wolf's back, taking another mass of raw, bloody meat. The blood gushed from the wolf, faster than the black and murky rivers rushing not far away, and it covered her hands, and her white tunic, and it lathered in her hair and made it matted and sticky._

 _She was perhaps little more than what the rest of the universe would refer to as a two-year-old, and from that moment, Emma knew she'd made an enemy of the wolves. But times had changed, and something within her, whether consciously or subconsciously, had torn into that animal. She needed meat, she needed food, she needed to be stronger, her Gallifreyan body forcing her onwards, setting the steaming chemicals in her blood alight, spurring a vitriol and venom in her blood, making her need meat, meat, meat, meat, meat. And the wolf had been there, and she'd ripped it apart – and now, she made her way over the animal, her mouth gorging piece by piece, methodically and effectively._

 _Regularly, the Doctor would come and see the child. As instructed, he would carry out whatever the Time Lords asked of him – he was involved in nothing too inhumane, he would simply carry out the cognitive and motor tests that the Time Lords required. He would teach the child basic skills, so she didn't merely become feral – so she would become, in effect, a normal person. Someone who would talk and communicate. Of course, that was far from normal, and the Doctor knew it. He was thankful, however, in a vile selfish kind of way, that this was the extent of his role. For he was he was complacent to the inhumanity. He was allowing this to happen._

 _Perhaps it was because of this, the Doctor would check on the little girl more often than was necessary. Partly out of guilt, perhaps. Carrying on with whatever sick experiment this was. Allowing this little girl to grow up in such bitter and disgusting conditions, while he had his lovely, beautiful family on stand-by._

 _But for whatever twisted reason in his head, he kept going. Perhaps it was out of knowing the experiment would continue regardless, perhaps it was out of fear. There was the core behind his guilt – but what scared him most of all, was that he had felt guiltier about smaller things. He could feel it, the cruel streak emerging within him, now he had things to lose. Now he had Cioné, Iris, Lizzie. They'd say they didn't need protecting – but the Doctor loved them too much to care. He would do this, whether he wanted to or not, no matter how twisted it made him._

 _And so there he would be, prowling like a wolf through the forest, to that old house where the little girl raised herself._

 _Just like a wolf, he was scared of the girl as well. Just as he'd been terrified of her mother._

 _That night, he pushed the rickety old door, and caught by a faint, gloomy draught, it swung with an eerie gentile, gently thudding against the exposed brickwork surrounding the doorframe. As he stepped inside, his coattails trailing behind him, he heard the leaves crunch and the twigs snap beneath his feet, and he felt the wet, slimy mud stick to his shoes. He squelched through, and turned into the chamber he always found the little girl._

 _It was a former drawing room – once upon a time, it had probably been grand and ornate, with chandeliers dangling from the ceilings, held up by the strength of their proprietor's status. With huge bayed windows, overlooking the extensive forests expanding around them. With handcraft furniture, fitted bespoke for the chamber itself. With sofas fashioned from exquisite material, maybe with old paintings hanging delicately from the walls._

 _All had crumbled now. There was nothing. No light, no heart, no warmth. The darkness and the cold streamed in through the broken window frames, and the sole furniture, of one table, and two chairs, was the sole extent of Emma's possessions. As if she ever used them – most of the time, the girl would eat and drink on the floor, just as she slept on that grimy old mattress._

 _As the Doctor turned into the room, he saw her._

 _She would be like this a lot, hauling her mattress to the centre of the drawing room, and sitting on it as if she were meditating. Emma would face the windows, and she would close her eyes, allowing the cold to blow ominously past her, and knowing, but not seeing, that ahead of her, there was something more. Stuff that she didn't understand. She would grasp how tiny she was then – except, she never understood that's what the feeling was._

 _The Doctor would see her as he walked in, staring away from him, out of the window. Her build was that of a young child, perhaps 5, maybe 6. The age of Gallifreyans, however, was hard to grasp, time moving in an entirely different and malleable way._

" _I… know," Emma said, without turning around. Her words were thin and brittle – she was only just learning to talk, only just able to string together the words and occasionally sentences she needed._

" _Good evening, Emma," the Doctor spoke clearly and eloquently. It was important, so that Emma could pick up the words, pick up the way he said them, the way his mouth formed them. She didn't turn, so the Doctor walked up beside her. In the cold, her skin had turned paler than milk, giving her the complexion of a living corpse. "How are you?"_

" _... living."_

 _The Doctor wasn't sure if that were the case. But, he acknowledged her remark, and sat down beside her. He never used the chairs, he never liked feeling superior to her._

" _Emma," the Doctor reached into his pocket, and grabbed a jar. As he took it out, it shone a strange light in the room around them, illuminating the dark and filling it with a buzzing, flickering light, reminiscent of the strange balls of light whizzing and dashing about in their glass confines. "Do you remember the test we did? We're going to try it again, if that's okay."_

 _Emma didn't respond… but she never did. It was as if she knew something were wrong, something with the very nature of her being didn't quite cohere. The Doctor gave the jar a shake, and the particles gave an extra fast 'whizz' – before he unscrewed the lid._

 _It stuck, just slightly – but with a firm yank, the lid popped off in his hands, and the blue particles began to fly and dance and burst and sing in front of them. It was a peculiar sight, in the death and the emptiness of the chamber, to see such light and life in front of them._

 _Emma's eyes opened._

 _She watched them coldly, oblivious by their beauty. This world of rot and degeneration had warped her perception of anything many would refer to as beautiful. Instead… Emma didn't seem to understand beauty. Or… she saw beauty as something else. Whatever it was, the whirring, popping blue lights didn't faze her, and her eyes merely followed them around, whooshing and nipping all around her head, staying strictly focused on her and not flying anywhere else within the room._

 _It wasn't just 'as if' Emma was keeping them close – Emma_ was _keeping them close._

 _The zapping blue lights were chronon particles… time, hurtling and rushing around Emma's head. They exposed Gallifreyan children to chronon particles, seeing how they reacted, seeing what they did – often as a test, a measure of seeing the intelligence of the child. Not just the intelligence, however… something more, there was a sort of indescribable gift that the chronon particles could measure. One's manipulation of the particles was often used to see the strength of mind of the individual being tested._

 _And the Doctor was forever amazed with Emma's results. As they danced in front of her, illuminating her chilling face with an ethereal blue light, they seemed to be drawn to her, they seemed to hover and buzz around her head, and none at all would stray elsewhere, as if they were truly captivated by Emma's presence… or as if Emma had_ made _them captivated by her presence._

 _Then, the chronon particles divided, and they divided again, until four times the number of little blue lights were bringing light to the room. Seemingly, Emma did it all unfazed, her eyes staring vacantly as the specks and spots of light hopped around before her very eyes._

 _To her, the chronon particles were malleable, they could be warped and made in her design. She divided the atoms with a brainpower and willpower that the Doctor had never seen before._

 _These weren't the only tests – the Doctor tried them all. Chronon particles, subatomic restructuring, radiation envelopes, dimensional transfiguring. But all of them showed the same. Emma displayed an impossible mental strength, something unheard of in the universe. Of course, it hadn't been honed, it hadn't been perfected, but her current intelligence, and the potential intelligence, was almost impossible. Her mental power was extraordinary, perhaps destined, when mastered, to be stronger than that of her mother. In fact, for many in the upper echelons of the experiment, there was no doubt about this._

 _Emma was the greatest Time Lord mind to ever exist._

" _How do you feel, Emma?"_

 _The Doctor asked the question, specifically wanting to engage an emotional response. The little girl didn't seem to understand feelings or emotions, there weren't ever any words for them, never any sign for them. There were no tests that could communicate the power behind emotions… nothing that could ever examine anything so powerful. Emma's brainpower was all well and good, and perhaps it was all that mattered to the Time Lords… but the Doctor wanted something more. He wanted to know how she felt._

 _There was a pause, as if Emma were cycling through everything she'd learned. The Doctor reached into his pockets, and took out a series of cards, laying them on the dusty ground in front of her. Each of them had a smiley-face on them… but not always smiley – with a variety of expressions, each perhaps trying to explain emotions to a young child._

 _Perhaps it was a futile job, trying to explain such an… impossible thing. And cards were even more useless. How could one liken something so deep, complex, and overwhelming, to a simple picture? But… that was how it worked. And the Doctor looked at the cards, almost envious, wishing that one of the faces would explain him. He thought this whenever he was with the little girl, and none of them ever worked – he was always a cocktail of all sorts of feelings, some on the cards, some of them not._

 _Emma didn't seem to like the cards either. Her eyes were scanning over them, but none of them seemed to be able to explain. Emma was concentrating now, in a way she hadn't been before, her eyes completely fixed on trying to work out this unsolvable puzzle. And eventually, the calculations, the analysis, all of it began to wind up inside her little head. And perhaps she had found a word._

" _Alone."_

 _The words were a punch to the Doctor's gut. Emma's expression was unmoving, unwavering, but the Doctor had to steady himself. It had been alright, for a while – to his own horror, he'd been able to divorce the person from his task. But now it was merging, he couldn't stop himself from acknowledging that Emma was thinking, feeling, living, breathing. Now it rose up at him, like flames licking away. Loneliness… something nobody should ever have to speak of – and something a child should never, ever understand._

 _For this was not a thing that ever should have happened._

 _And yet it did, and he was part of it._

 _ **LINE HERE**_

Iris strode up to the vast plateau of rock, tossing a stone up and down in her hand. Without a second's hesitation, she meandered across it, her snow-boots slapping against the smoothened surface. It was strange, perhaps, that so exposed to the elements, the rock hadn't been weathered. That was why it looked so out of place on the top of the mountain – it looked so man-made. It was as if there were something, keeping that plateau of marble as perfect as it was.

She could feel the men behind her, bristling as she got closer and closer. They seemed to be awfully scared. Iris didn't care. When she was a bit further back from the middle, she gripped the stone in her hand, and tossed it forwards.

Before it hit the ground, however, it disappeared.

Iris heard Urshak behind her, and his voice trembled. Perhaps from the cold – but most likely from the fear. "Where – where did it go?" he mumbled.

"That's a wormhole," Iris gestured up to it. "Pretty neat sci-fi, really. Except, through that wormhole, is a prison, established by this evil church lot. The Qlerics. 'Religious liberty' gone mad… they're allowed to open courts and jails and start trying people."

A younger traveller dared to speak up, his voice slightly muffled by the furs he'd wrapped tightly around him – tighter so, as if he believed they could provide him some protection. "Who's in the prison?"

Iris eyed the wormhole closely. "The most dangerous woman in the universe…"

Suddenly, half the men around them descended into fits of laughter.

"What harm can a woman do to us?" Urshak growled, heaving in breaths through his hysterical cackling.

It was at that moment, that from the sky, a bolt of lightning seemed to burst through the wormhole, and struck down three of the travellers, turning their once-freezing bodies into smouldering corpses.

Iris shuddered when she saw the bodies. Good to know Emma didn't take lightly to casual misogyny. Even so, that almighty display of power was a little bit unnerving. Well – very unnerving, in fact.

Lizzie gently stepped away from the travellers, and made her way up onto the plateau with Iris, who was just taking the sonic screwdriver out of her pocket, having pinched it from her father earlier. She pointed it up to the plateau, and with a quick burst of energy, the wormhole seemed to burst to life in front of them.

"Good luck, you lot!" Iris waved at the travellers, before stepping through the wormhole. Lizzie followed her.

When the wormhole closed, Urshak and his expedition glanced around at each other, spellbound by whatever supernatural forces at work around them.

When Lizzie and Iris blinked, they were in a corridor. It was cold, grey, and metal – and at the far end, were two double doors. However – there were two Qlerics, stood in front of it, in their frog-like glory. They wore their flowing, red robes, the colour of blood juxtaposed coldly against the steel of the corridor. With her usual confidence, Iris paraded up to them.

"We've got visitors rights," she held up a card she'd obtained, after her contact with Emma. The Qleric who examined it seemed impressed, and so he turned and pushed open the double doors.

The chamber beyond them was large, with a great glass cube in the centre. It was almost… too high-security for it to be real, as with that thick glass and the thick metal walls around them, escape seemed impossible. There was a real claustrophobia to the Qleric prison, isolated away in a distant dimension, in a strange metal box – with a strange glass box in front of them.

And she was there. Inside the glass cube, dressed in a stained, murky grey outfit, Emma sat watching them from her cold, metal chair. There was a table in front of her, and two chairs behind it – almost as if this situation had been prepared for especially. The glass box was surrounded by machinery, computers, panels, flickering lights and scanners. When Lizzie caught sight of the heart-rate monitor, doubled up due to the binary-vascular system, that was when she knew. Emma was being… examined, perhaps, from inside the box. The most striking thing was that another heart-rate monitor pulsated just beside it, one displaying the simple heart-rate of a human being. A chill ran down Lizzie's spine… there was someone else there… someone nearby.

And yet, she couldn't see them.

The robed figures, with their bulbous, frog-like heads, padded over to the glass door in the side of the cube, and placing a hand on it, the door slid open. A wide-open exit, and yet Emma sat tight in her seat… it was as if she didn't _want_ to escape. What could be so terrifying it deterred one from seizing the chance of a way out? It made Lizzie reluctant to enter – but Iris, with her usual lack of fear, meandered casually through into the box. Lizzie took a quick sideways glance to the nearby Qleric, who seemed unbothered by her concern. So… she stepped in.

The door sealed behind them, and Lizzie felt her heart pound harder than before. The Qlerics could shut the two of them in there, keep them trapped with Emma. Emma, who didn't say anything. Emma's, whose eyes blazed a piercing green, and whose eyes stared hard at Lizzie and Iris.

She was, without doubt, terrifying.

It wasn't as if Lizzie had any reason to be scared of her. But… she was. There was a rawness to Emma, a brutal honesty. There was something cold, an uncaringness. At the same time, there was a careful precision to every look, every slight movement. Emma planned out everything she did with exact calculation, as if she always had the final result in mind, and new fully what steps to realise to get there.

Iris tried to ignore Emma's looks, by causally strolling over and plonking herself down on one of the chairs opposite Emma. Lizzie walked over and did the same, and as she did so, she could see Emma with eyes surveying her. Just as Lizzie could read people, Emma seemed to be able to do the same, as if her look was an examination, a study, perhaps.

"You found out I was here?" Emma asked, looking directly at Lizzie and Iris. It was quite off-putting, especially for Lizzie, who always found it awkward looking straight at people during conversations.

"The messages were hard to avoid," Iris shrugged.

"That was the point," Emma sat perfectly straight, her hands clasped in an arch on the table. As she spoke, she was motionless, the only movement coming from her mouth.

"What do you need, anyway? Saving?" Iris looked around her at the Qlerics, as they paced up and down beside the cube. There was no way they could get Emma out of there.

"No. I simply want to talk."

"But you never speak, like… ever?" Iris mused. In all of their conversations, everything had felt so… scripted.

Emma's head tilted in a mocking, bitter way. "That's because unlike you, instead of spouting white noise, I actually care about what I say. Words matter, Iris. They are our sole vessels of communication. Whether spoken, or written."

"I don't always think so," Lizzie said, with the aim of steering this so far quite aimless conversation back on course. "We could've left you here."

Emma gave a simple, casual response. "I knew you wouldn't."

It was as if she truly felt safe in the knowledge, that Lizzie and Iris would come. Information on Cullengate, of course they would.

And something else. And they didn't know. As Emma looked at them, she could see that Lizzie and Iris didn't understand. It was almost as if Iris and Emma were cousins, and Emma doubted very much that the Doctor's family had been open and honest with each other.

"Do you know who I am, Iris?" Emma asked simply.

Iris looked at her blankly. Then shook her head. "Noope."

Emma nodded slowly.

"Well. I know you're that pale weirdo who gave Lizzie her business card."

Emma was right in her suspicions. They didn't know. Besides. She could read it in their faces.

So she continued.

"Do you care, Iris?"

Emma's words were ambiguous, so much so they seemed to strike Iris with a wave of confusion.

"Care for what?" she eventually responded.

"Do you care?" Emma simply repeated herself, which seemed to fill Iris with nothing but irritation.

"Look, I don't know what you're –"

"You're naïve."

Iris was about to protest again, but she didn't, Emma's words stopped her in her tracks. It was true. She wasn't that old, she barely knew anything about the universe. But asking her if she cared? That was nothing short of an insult. Of course she cared.

"I prefer the term 'youthful'," Iris responded, a sarcastic grin on her face.

Emma seemed unfazed, and uncaring. "I think, in fact, you know nothing."

Iris was young… and Emma could see that. She could see the truth behind the girl – the product of a warm, cosy, familial upbringing. Someone who had lived comfortably, who had gotten the best start in life. Someone who perhaps didn't have anything much to worry about. And yet… someone who had become so flawed because of it.

"A lovely little family," Emma mocked, a sardonic look on her face. "All sweet and warm and… aww, how _nice_."

"It was, actually," Iris nodded, her mind drifting back to cosy evenings sat in front of the fire, the television on, with Dad, Mum, and Lizzie. K9 would be sat at her feet, and she would sip her hot chocolate, and she would be content. Those were the days.

"And yet… how much has it _ruined_ you?" Emma's sardonic smile twisted into a grim, mocking expression. "You were almost… isolated from reality? Your family was awash with lies. Perhaps that's why you're borderline Asperger's when it comes to talking about how you feel –"

Iris no longer looked so self-assured, she no longer seemed to carry herself with an unbreakable air of impenetrability. It seemed as if her walls were breaking down, the walls she so often carried herself with.

"Why are you telling me this?" Iris looked down, and noticed her hands gripping tightly on the side of the table. When she shifted one, it was trembling. Lizzie noticed, and she placed a hand gently on top of it to calm her down.

"Because your father can't get away with what he's done."

That's when Iris and Lizzie both stopped abruptly.

Get away with _what_?

Had they known each other?

There was something dark inside Emma, it was clear in the cold, cutting way she put herself forward. And Iris knew that she couldn't hide from the truth. She couldn't stay in her nice little bubble forever, and if Emma was living with that darkness inside of her… Iris couldn't hide from it either.

"What do you mean – what did he do? Wait – do you _know_ him?"

"I'm an honest person," Emma shrugged. "I don't keep secrets."

"Tell me," Iris spoke plainly. Lizzie sat shocked beside her, stunned by Iris' sudden forwardness – but she didn't show it. Iris had her reasons, after all. As she looked up at Emma, she wouldn't be… lesser than her. She wouldn't take this truth simply because Emma was forcing it on her out of bitterness – she would take the truth knowing that it was the right thing to do. Because it was the grown-up thing to do.

If Emma was shocked, she didn't show it – the only evidence was in a slight pause, longer than normal. With Emma, every beat felt organised, regimented. And that brief spell of silence didn't – and that was when Iris knew she'd shocked her.

"While you were growing up with your lovely little family, in your nice warm TARDIS with the whole universe ahead of you… your father kept me on a cold, distant, planet, buried somewhere at the back of the universe. He dropped by, every so often. He monitored me, at request of the Time Lords."

Iris' breathing increased, she tried to slow it, to make sure her… fear didn't seem evident. But it was a horrific revelation… that during those wonderful moments, when they'd been together as a family, her Dad had been keeping a dark secret. She tried to swallow her pain, but Emma continued, and as she did so, it became harder.

"No offence," Iris said, trying to steady her shaky voice. "But… you're a random girl. Why – why would he do that to you?"

"I don't want you to ever forget that, Iris. I want you to know how I suffered. And all that time your father could've saved me… I want you to know that he didn't. That he had his little family to keep him going every day, while I was alone."

"What do you want, then?" Iris spoke quickly. "Revenge?"

She tried to seem unwavering, she didn't want the bitter girl to win. But… at the same time, she was disgusted by the actions of her father. And when she next saw him, she'd give him hell because of it.

"I'm not doing this out of revenge. I'm not doing this out of pity. I'm doing this because it's the right thing to do."

That was the sentence that truly shook her. Because Emma was right. It was the right thing to do – people should know about what her Dad did. And it was good that Iris knew as well… she couldn't keep living in her cosy childhood bubble, when people like Emma were out there. People who were lonely, people who had lived on the verge of death, every single day.

"I can see it, Iris. The way this is changing you. You… finally realising that things aren't going to end happily. It's fine, it's called growing-up. But finally… you're seeing how twisted the world is. It's not always nice, and it's not always sweet. And I think… you're going to find out more about that, very soon."

It was this moment that Lizzie decided to speak. After all… Iris might not understand that, but Lizzie most certainly did, and she was sick of Emma's patronising act – even if she agreed with Emma's sentiments about unmasking the Doctor's lies.

"What do you mean?" she asked. Find out more, very soon… the words were ominous, chilling… and Lizzie was quite certain Emma knew something that they didn't. "And, look – I understand where you've been, Emma. Truly… I – I do. I want to help you –"

"Elizabeth," Emma quickly dismissed her. "You can't help me."

"But, I think –"

" _You can't_." And for once, Emma bristled, she seemed to display some kind of… agitation, or irritation, at Lizzie's remarks. There was a silence, while Lizzie retreated back into her seat, before Emma spoke again. "I've learned that when you're lonely, nobody comes. Never."

"They did," Lizzie smiled at Emma. She did so truthfully – because in the end, she had found a family.

And yet, Emma did not seem convinced. For as she looked at Lizzie, Emma saw something that perhaps… reminded her of herself. A loneliness, one that simply couldn't be solved. Some people were naturally lonely souls. Some people would feel like outsiders.

"But you're still alone," Emma said.

It seemed, however, that unlike Emma, Lizzie didn't think that meant they had to keep themselves isolated. And perhaps, she was lonely. Perhaps she always would be. But not so much so, that it would ever hurt her.

"Mmhm," Lizzie nodded. "But I'm happy. Kinda. And I know that doesn't mean anything. It's easy for me to say that when I've come through things."

"Then maybe you just got lucky," Emma shrugged. She certainly didn't. And she didn't think she ever would. But what would be the point in ever getting close to anyone? All her life, people had stabbed her in the back. If she placed her trust in anybody, they would turn on her. What would be the point of ever getting close to someone if that was always the outcome? Everyone would tell her to be optimistic, to tell her to have hope. But so far, whenever she'd done that, it had never ended well.

So what was the point? The universe had proved its darkness to her, and so she had resigned herself to it.

And as Lizzie looked at her, she saw someone rather similar to herself. Someone who the world had twisted, someone who had been manipulated by her experiences. Someone who had been lonely. But unlike her, Emma was different. She'd become resentful towards the world. She'd become bitter. Lizzie didn't blame her for that. Not at all – people dealt with trauma in different ways. And, in fact, Lizzie had been bitter as well, for a while. She'd hated the universe, she'd hated living. It was only when she'd met Leo, when she'd stood on that bridge and looked out at the stars, that she'd begun to see the value of existence again.

Lizzie had misinterpreted Emma. Normally, she could read people well, but for once, she'd failed. Emma wasn't cold. Or at least – if she was, it wasn't a bad thing. The universe changed people, bad things changed people. Who was Lizzie to judge her for that? There was no perfect way to cope – to say that would be to say that the cause was perfect. When… none of it was. They were all just strange, hopeless wanderers, in the end.

In fact… Lizzie had so much respect for the girl opposite. Perhaps she was still haunted… but she was still here. And that was quite wonderful.

It was then, that Iris spoke tentatively. She too seemed to have gained a respect for Emma. Perhaps Emma did despise her father – and rightly so. Iris would be blind not to see the reasons behind that. Dad wasn't a perfect human being. Far from it. She'd known it for a while – but it was only now that it truly settled in.

"What is it you want?" Iris asked. It still didn't make sense. She couldn't make it work in her head – Emma had been an entirely random girl. And yet… the Doctor had met her before. But maybe that was why Emma had found Lizzie – because she wanted to get closer to the man who had been complicit in holding her captive.

"I wanted you to know," Emma continued. "And then… I have plans. I can't promise you'll like them. But… they're going to happen."

"And I'm _guessing_ , that's what you meant when you were musing over me finding out about the cruelty of the universe, or whatevs?"

Although she wouldn't admit it, Emma's words had scared Iris. What she'd said about her finding out about… how twisted the world was. All her life, she'd been kept… well – she'd been safe. And so, the thought of that all coming to an end made her nervous. Still, Iris slapped on a brave face – she quite enjoyed not knowing what was going to happen, usually. Why should it be different here? Or at least – that's what she told herself.

"Hmm, no," Emma sniggered. "Your father is barely a footnote. There are dark days coming, Iris. And I think I'm to be a part of them. I've been looking into Mrs Cullengate, and I've discovered something… terrifying."

"Tell me," Lizzie sat forward. She needed to know, Evangeline Cullengate's silence did nothing but make her anxious. And if Emma had any information, she had to have it, she had to keep her mind at rest.

Emma simply shook her head, however. She turned to Iris, and said, "Footnote your father might be, but footnotes can mean a lot. I can't risk the information falling into his hands. When I'm ready, you'll all know. Believe me."

"Look," Iris spoke up, and spoke with an honesty and maturity she hadn't used before. "Creds to you, kay? You lived through some terrible stuff, not gonna lie. But please, I'm asking you, don't take my father from me – please. I know he got it wrong, he's not perfect – but you can't expect me to just… abandon someone I love, after everything he's done for me."

"I'm not expecting you to," Emma's expression was blank, emotionless, perhaps. And yet, that emotionless quality held more emotion than one could realise. "I respect you both, especially you, Elizabeth. But your father, Iris? He will suffer, after everything he's done to me."


	22. The Loneliness of Existence

**London, 2018 – 13:35PM**

"Just… tell me everything," was all Cioné could say. "Please."

She needed to know. But she guessed this was why the Doctor had been… quieter. There had been moments when she'd looked at him, and he'd seemed so… empty. Guilty, perhaps. She hadn't been sure at the time. Ever since Christmas and Bethlehem, he'd retreated into himself…

"When Iris was just a baby, I was summoned to a planet. Some… distant place, hidden away from everywhere else. The Time Lords met me, and… they had a child with them. Emma. A bit older than Iris, but roughly the same age."

It made sense that the Doctor and the Master, almost sibling-like in their relationship, should have children at the same time.

The Doctor took a deep breath, before he continued.

"It was a sort of… covert conspiracy. And the idea was… to leave a Gallifreyan child in the wild, and see how she grew. What sort of person would she grow into? So… that's what they did. They left her there, on this planet, when she was just a baby."

The Doctor paused, as he prepared to tell his part in the tale. This was the hardest part of all. And already, Cioné was grimacing at the knowledge of what had gone on. It was truly horrifying, that someone could bear to treat a child in such a way. And yet… she was not surprised. Nothing about the upper Gallifreyan echelons could surprise her. It hit even harder, not just because it was so barbaric, but because Cioné was a mother, to a girl the same age. No child, no matter who their parents were, deserved to be treated as an experiment.

"They still wanted a person, above all," the Doctor gulped. "Not just a feral child. So my job was to… stop by every so often, to make sure that she could speak, to make sure that she… understood basic information about the universe."

He stopped, and Cioné sighed, and shook her head. How could he have been complicit in all of this? He might as well have been fully involved, if he had gone along with them. His… display of support for such a thing was almost skin-crawling. And… how had he lied to her about this? How had he kept this secret? All of those days when he might've just popped down to the Empire for a carton of milk, perhaps he was off to see the abandoned little girl being raised by wolves. All of the lies he must've told, a huge, intricate web of deceit.

"No," she shook her head. "No, no, no – you – please, you didn't?"

"I did."

"Why didn't you do something about it?" she spluttered, at a complete loss of anything to say. She couldn't get her head around how, with a little girl the same age, he could condemn the Master's daughter to a lifetime of suffering.

"Because I was stuck," the Doctor shrugged. There was nothing more to say than that. Yes, he regretted being a part of it, every single day – but there was nothing else he could have done, apart from risk all of their lives. "They threatened you, and Iris, and above all, the Monitor in Emma's head was programmed to kill her if she ever left the planet."

"Please don't pull the old, 'I was trying to protect you', card, because quelle surprise, darling, I can actually think for myself without being lied to."

The amount of times Cioné risked her life, and perhaps the Doctor didn't even realise it. The work she did in the Time War… not killing anyone, not hurting innocent children. But helping them. Journeying to the front-line, where the Daleks and the Time Lords caused devastation wherever they went. The burning, flaming corpses, the torrents of blood gushing across the battlefields. Cioné had even seen a few planets turned to cinders. And whenever she saw it happen, she would shiver, and think of what was to come. If this was only the first few years, and they were no closer to a victory… what would it be like near the end? Whole universes obliterated? Whole civilisations burned?

And for some reason, she thought that it had never quite clicked for her husband, that if she went there and back every day, she could save his arse every single day and twice on a Sunday.

"I know, I know," the Doctor shook his head, knowing that he was wrong. "Of course now I realise I was wrong – but at the time, with my new-born daughter, what did you expect me to do?"

He had been so lost, before Lizzie had found him. And still lost, before his family had truly been brought together. In the fresh throes of that, he couldn't have brought himself to ever risking them. But understanding it didn't help. He still saw the extent of the damage he did.

"We could've helped her!" Cioné would've taken her in. Emma was the same age as Iris, it would be almost like having twins. That would've been wonderful, and it would've… perhaps helped Emma.

"I didn't sit around doing nothing," was all the Doctor could think of to say. "What nobody understands, what I haven't explained to anybody, is that… I tried to play the long game."

He'd had an idea, right from the start. A beautiful, bright, whizzing idea, one that could've saved Emma, one that could've raised her into what her mother never was – but also everything beautiful that her mother was at the same time.

And the Doctor had tried, too hard to get it to work. But now… he didn't believe it had.

"I tried to… show her the right way. I tried to guide her, to show her the… awe and wonder of seeing the universe. I thought, if I can gradually show her, perhaps she'll become what her mother never could be."

It was still truly impossible for Cioné to get her head around, that all she could do was sit back from her steak and swear to herself in her head. She had seen tortured young people, and she knew the effect that trauma could have. She saw it every day, whenever she went to the front line. And above all, one of the things Cioné held closest to her, was the right to be who you want. Trying to shape someone's life, trying to turn them into something, instead of letting them find their own way – that was one of the worst things of all. Trying to… turn off their personality, who one truly was… that made her shiver.

And so there was only one thing the Doctor could do. If he had allowed someone's life to be dictated, their destiny to be forced, then he _needed_ him to do this.

"You need to find her, and you need to make amends."

The Doctor did not seem convinced. After their brief reunion on Bethlehem, Emma seemed full of nothing but hate for him. "Do you truly think she'll be so quick to get along?"

"No, I don't. In fact, I think she'll ignore everything you say, before leaving. But I don't care if she hates you, you need to try."

A stony silence fell, and Cioné picked up a chip and ate it.

"You talk about this as if it can… be fixed," the3 Doctor said, looking back over at the river. The sun had gone in, and that perfect reflection had vanished.

"I don't think it can," Cioné admitted. "But at the very least, I think you need to realise what you've done."

The Doctor couldn't deny that. This couldn't be made… right, but all he could do was try.

Another silence followed, and Cioné continued to munch her way through some of her chips, perhaps to try and diffuse the tension. The two of them didn't have disputes that often, and when they did, they hit hard, with neither knowing quite what to say. So used to getting along normally, finding the words to argue with the person they each loved was stilted, perhaps even a little bit awkward.

Cioné, however, found something else to say.

"And what makes this worse, is that there's Iris, and myself, and we're oblivious to all of this. Do you know how that makes me feel? That we could've saved her, but we didn't? Now, it isn't just you who has to live with that, it's me as well –"

"It isn't your fault," he interrupted, determined to make sure she knew that. She didn't know, and so there was nothing that Cioné could've done.

But Cioné was not so easily reconciled. "I _could've_ done something, but you… you denied me that."

Perhaps he was to blame, but she couldn't help but feel responsible. Had she known, she could've helped. Maybe not much, maybe only a little, but it would've been something.

"I can't believe this. I – I can't _actually_ believe you – you were part of this…"

The Doctor didn't say anything. There was nothing more he _could_ say.

Of course, the Doctor was still missing something quite large. Typical male brain, the important things just not quite sticking. Cioné watched him, waiting to see if he'd caught up yet. But nope… his eyes wandering over the street below.

Eventually, she asked him.

"How did she get off the planet?"

That seemed to pique the Doctor's interest, as his eyes darted back to her. Somehow, Emma had escaped the clutches of the Time Lords. Somehow, she'd overcome the Monitor.

He would have to find out how.

 _She waited, clutching her knife close to her. There was a strange, stone pillar, and so she hid behind it. There was another not far away from it – perhaps the remnants of some old archway, with great, thick roots curled around the base of the cobble constructions, moss stuck to them and weeds crawling from beneath the cracks. Vines and ivy were intertwined the stone, some of them crawling through thin air to the hulking body of the tree just beside the relics._

 _The wolf prowled below, just down the hill. She saw it, sneaking through the undergrowth, beneath the cover of the darkness of the forest floor. The dead leaves and the thick polluted sky created a mucky, cloudy curtain across the roof of the world, and the wolf was using it to its advantage, as it slunk through the bushes and the bracken and the shrubbery, occasionally darting behind the tree. It watched its every step, avoiding any sticks or dry leaves that could give the game away. And in their game, even the tiniest twig was deadly. Emma's hearing was sharp, and she used her traditional predator's ears to her advantage. If that wolf put a foot out of line, Emma would pounce from the shadows and the wolf would be dead before its nervous system even began to carry out any of the split-second reactions necessary for its reflexes to kick into gear._

 _Of course, this makes it sound as if the game was always won with ease. No… the wolves were the masters, she was merely the challenger. But quickly she had risen, that the wolves knew her. They knew not to fight her, they knew to run even at the sight of her silhouette. But that was the problem. They knew her so well, and just as they were good hunters, they were good hiders too. But just as they had adapted, Emma had adapted as well. She could track a wolf, she could kill the wolf. It was all done with exceptional precision. Nowadays, she didn't just… kill the wolf, and eat it raw like a savage. She had perfected her art so well, that she would never leave a mess behind. Emma was methodical, killing it quickly, cutting it up, dividing it by body-part. The dismembering was clean, quick, and little blood was shed._

 _He had asked her once, whether she felt guilty about it. Whether she felt sad that she killed another living creature. That had stuck in Emma's mind, because nothing else had ever crossed her mind. What reason was there to feel guilty about it? She had to kill them so she could live. She had to try, so hard, just to survive. And the lengths she would go to, just to live._

 _Emma could see it, skulking just up the hill. It could smell her. But it wasn't sure where. So, silently she crept around the pillar – it was but metres away, she could almost taste the meat in her mouth. Emma drew her knife, and as the wolf turned around, before it could even register what it saw, the knife plunged through its brain._

 _She knelt down, scooped up the carcass, and tossed it over her shoulder. Then, she began her journey back to… wherever it was she came from._

 _Emma had no name for the house. It was just… the house. The Doctor said it was her home, but when she asked him to describe his home, hers sounded nothing like it at all. In fact… hers sounded like exactly the opposite of what home was meant to be. A home should be warm – not just in temperature, but in atmosphere. There would be people. But Emma had only met one person in her life. In fact, she didn't even know anyone else existed, she only thought they did, because the Doctor said so. For all she knew, they could be the only two people in the universe, and he was mad. There was nobody else. Half the time, there wasn't even him. There was just her, and the insects, and the wolves. No cosiness, no… love, barely any life._

 _So, Emma referred to it as the house. The place she slept and eat. The place she spent her days._

 _When she got back there that afternoon, the box was there. The blue one, it was there every so often. It meant the Doctor was there to see her._

 _She readjusted the corpse on her back, and made her way in._

 _He was sat in one of her chairs, and as soon as she entered, he stood up, and greeted her, and asked her how she was. Emma understood interaction, since the Doctor spoke to her. And although she didn't know anything about anywhere beyond that planet, she believed that if there was anything, communicating must be a part of it. Otherwise, why would the Doctor do it so instinctively?_

" _I am fine, thank you," Emma responded. "Why are you here?"_

" _I just… came to check on you," the Doctor seemed confused, as if she'd said something wrong._

" _I am fine. Now, please leave." She was busy, and she had things to be doing. The wolf needed to be cut, the planks on the windows needed to be reinforced. Occasionally, she'd get a pack trying to get in, in the middle of the night. They'd batter the doors, and the windows, desperate to get in and kill the girl who killed them._

 _The Doctor was reluctant to go, and he was, admittedly, taken aback. Emma had never said anything like that, she'd never asked him to leave. But he could tell she was growing up. Nearly a teenager, now. Once upon a time, her sentences were broken, stilted, and awkward. But now, she spoke fluently, and she spoke well. Emma knew nothing of the outside universe, barring that it existed. But because of that, her skills in this world had nearly been honed to perfection. Hunting, hiding, killing, observing, all were perfectly done._

" _Did I say something wrong?" she asked him, noticing his hesitation._

" _No, no!" he quickly said, his intrigue perhaps making him look irritable. "You're growing up, you're allowed to be irritable. I went to a planet, not long ago, where the people are the grumpiest in the universe. And I'm not surprised, its cloudy and there's a constant drizzle. So I took one of them to Solus, this... completely empty planet. But because of that, you can see for miles and miles – and the sunsets are just magnificent."_

 _Emma listened to him – but it was only a half-listen. The Doctor always went on about the universe as if it was just nearby. It all seemed so regular to him, as if he spent so much time… seeing it. But just as Emma didn't know whether there was anyone else, Emma didn't even know if there was a universe. So, hearing him talk about it was almost painful. Hearing him speak of so much… beauty, it hurt, because she had never seen any of it. She didn't even know how to picture it in her mind, she had nothing to go on. But he said it was good. Even that confused her, but she acknowledged it anyway._

 _If there was a universe… how did it work? Did everyone live in houses, and kill wolves? Were there more rivers? Were the trees as dead as these ones? If there was one thing Emma had learned, it was life and death. She understood it, because she killed the wolves, she knew what death was. Through that, Emma understood how close to death she was herself._

 _But she didn't understand life._

" _Wolves have children," she sat down on the chair beside him. It had been bugging her for a long time, the origins of life. Well – not necessarily life in general, but her life._

" _Yes," the Doctor nodded, unsure of where Emma was going._

" _Two wolves mate, and they have young."_

" _Yes," the Doctor confirmed. Phew. That was a conversation he'd let Cioné have with Iris._

" _Therefore, two people had me."_

 _The Doctor hesitated, knowing that this was a question that would open up all sorts of questions for the girl. But he would answer them, and he would do so honestly. The Time Lords wouldn't kill anyone for that, surely? The Time Lords would at least have the heart to be fair, and kind, just this once? But he didn't believe himself, he knew the Time Lords would be cruel to the end. His only reassurance, was that they would want the girl to know. The reaction, perhaps they would want to see it._

" _They did," the Doctor tentatively verified her question._

" _Who were they?"_

 _Oh… that was a question with more dimensions than the little girl would perhaps be able to understand, isolated on that little planet. It made him realise even more, that letting this happen was wrong, that perhaps he was failing her by letting this happen._

" _I'm afraid I only know your mother….," he paused, as he braced himself to talk about her. He didn't talk about her very often. After all, how easy was it to talk about your psychopath pseudo-sibling? "Her name was the Master."_

 _The words hung in the air, as Emma digested them. The Master. It was strange… the woman who had given her life, and finally she had a name. It was as if there was someone, definitely. But she still wasn't sure. There was a hole, one which the Doctor had just… stuck a name over, perhaps. She needed more. But…. Emma didn't have long to wait, before the Doctor continued._

" _We grew up together. And… we were best friends. We were so close, we were like siblings, in fact. She made living so much fun, because she always… understood how rare it is that we are alive. So… she would dance through life, without a care in the world, and she would adore every second of it."_

 _The Doctor reminisced back on those childhood days, and their teenage years. The chaos they'd got up to, the madness and craziness of their lives. And all of it because of her._

" _She wasn't always right," the Doctor admitted. "In fact, she got it very wrong, quite a lot, and I wish she was still here for me to ty and show her that there was another way to do things."_

 _He glanced over at Emma, and the girl was mesmerised. Because now, her mother felt real. She wasn't just a name, just a… person who had brought Emma into the world. Now, the Master had a life, people she had impacted on, people whose lives she'd changed. She'd not always done things right, and that made her even more vivid. Because nobody could do things perfectly, so now, Emma felt her mother was real. And… Emma suddenly felt an affinity with her. Emma didn't always get things right. Emma didn't even know what was right, what wasn't right._

 _There was one thing he'd said that had stuck out, one thing that struck her above everything else. In fact, it had struck her like a punch to the stomach, but it hadn't quite settled in. It almost didn't feel completely… real. But gradually it was sinking in, and gradually, Emma was understanding._

" _Is she dead?"_

 _The Doctor hesitated, but there was no point lying to the little girl._

" _Yes."_

 _Simple words, but enough to make Emma look away from him, and look out towards the boarded-up window in confusion. Because… she was confused. She hadn't even known her mother, and yet… she still felt a sense of loss. Emma often felt alone on that dirty, dead planet, but now she felt more alone than ever. It was as if there should have been someone out there for her – but that person was gone. What was that feeling? She didn't understand it at all. It wasn't even as if Emma felt any kind of… what the Doctor may call love, towards her mother. She just felt… as if she needed to know, why she was the way she was. And Emma felt as if her mother was the only answer to that._

 _And the only answer was gone._

 _Emma stood up, and slowly she dragged herself to the door. The Doctor stood up and followed her._

" _Did she love me?" Emma asked, as they walked side by side, Emma just slightly ahead. She seemed to be leading him up the stairs, and the Doctor wasn't quite sure why._

 _He could lie to her. He could give her hope. But… that would hurt her more in the end. One couldn't just… scoop out hope for the sake of it, he'd realised. Sometimes there were situations when things weren't so straightforward. He hesitated, while she led him up that grand staircase, and while she showed him to the top of the landing._

 _The stairs opened into an immense corridor – but it was buried right at the heart of the house, and so when the Doctor looked down it, the walls seemed to… collapse in on each other, creating a sort of claustrophobic tunnel, as if one could easily get lost in those dark, lurking shadows. Emma led him down it, and gradually as the darkness shifted, the Doctor could see the faint outline of a window frame merging into view. It was large, and arch-shaped, and as the Doctor stepped up to it with Emma, he could see far through the thick foliage of the forest._

 _Most notably, the window was less like a window, and more like a door – an arch within the arch, the panes smashed so that one could walk through it, stepping out into the nothingness beyond its extension. Except, if one were to step through that broken window, one would perhaps die before they reached the ground, as the shattered glass, which jutted and protruded from the frame, was like a frame of hands each wielding knives, so sharpened and honed by the weather that it could slice through skin with the slickness and deftness of a finger stroked through something like oil, or custard, or maybe even blood._

 _The wind blew through the window, and the Doctor pulled his jacket tight against the cold, as it gusted down the corridor, creating an almost ominous whistle, as if the house were some devilish musical instrument. Emma, in the simple, white clothes she was dressed in, dirtied by her hunting and skulking predatorily through the woods, stepped closer to the cold, letting her auburn hair billow in the rush of bitter air_

 _Then, Emma stepped onto the stone ledge, so the fragments of glass were but millimetres from her throat. She felt a sliver bristle gently against her flesh, and when she turned just slightly, it lethargically pierced the skin on her neck. It barely touched her, it was perhaps just a scrape, but Emma felt it, almost in slow motion. It might have been just a scrape, but it did, in fact, slice through several layers of cells, lightly piquing her pain receptors, before it drew blood; not much, but a small drop, poking its head from the tear, before lazily rolling down onto her white tunic._

" _What are you doing?" the Doctor eventually asked. Emma didn't turn around – her eyes remained firmly locked onto the sky ahead._

" _I'm watching. I like to stand in the window and look up."_

 _Emma's eyes poured into the murky, thick clouds. From her window, she felt so tiny. So insignificant. It was when she looked out, that Emma felt there was something there, something more than just her little world of trees and the river and wolves. It was when she realised that the Doctor might not just drop out of nowhere and see her, that there was truth to his implications and there was a whole other place above her head. Emma could imagine that some people would look up to the sky above their heads and they would feel hopeful, a surge of optimism rushing through them._

 _But as Emma gazed at the sky, it just looked like a ceiling, and that standing in that window was the closest she would ever get to smashing it. It felt tangible, when she was stood in the window, as if she reached hard enough she might achieve the means to not look up at the sky and feel lost, or feel alone. As if she might just get close enough to break free._

 _It wasn't that day, however. When she blinked, the ceiling was fixed, the slate-grey plumes of natural smog churning in the atmosphere, and the blanket of charcoal leaves matting the underneath. There would be no escaping. And all this time, she could feel the Doctor behind her. She knew he was there, watching her, calculating her. The Doctor was a wolf – except, unlike the wolves, he wasn't cold. Or at least, he didn't try to be. But the fact he would stop there, and provide no answers, made him all the colder._

 _Eventually, the Doctor spoke, his voice punctuating the whistling winds_

" _I never answered your question."_

 _There was a spell of hesitation, and eventually Emma found the words._

" _When I heard your silence I realised I never needed an answer."_

 _The words hit the Doctor hard – for that certainly wasn't the truth. In fact, if he knew his oldest friend well enough, then he knew that the Master would have ripped galaxies apart to save her own. And yet, the Master wasn't there. Emma's mother was dead. There was nobody to protect Emma… apart from himself. And the Doctor had failed her._

 _As Emma looked out at the sky, and felt small, she also felt alone._

 _For that was the hardest thing about living on this world. She was the only one remotely like… her, really. Only the Doctor, but he didn't really count, because he only stopped by occasionally, and even then, he always seemed preoccupied with something else. Emma had always felt as if he wasn't alone, that he came from a place where there were people, and that… he had people to love, just as she saw the wolves in their packs. A family, the Doctor had said once, when he'd seen a group of them prowling around the outside of the house. He had said that word… strangely. It was as if saying it made him sad._

 _But Emma was alone. She wasn't like the wolves, she didn't have anyone to rely on. She was just her, and most of the time, she believed that she always would be. Occasionally there would be glimmers, when Emma would wonder whether she could ever meet anyone else. Or… whether this planet was just going to be her existence forever. The hunting, the old house, just… doing what she'd always done, ad infinitum, with no clear end._

 _It was a thought that she couldn't dwell on for long, because it would drive her insane. If there was one thing that Emma understood for certain, it was that she hated this existence. She hated it all, she despised the loneliness, and she hated the wolves. The only thing she enjoyed was killing the wolves, for it made her feel as if she was culling her demons. As if she could keep doing it, and perhaps she would one day feel content. Because… that was the worst thing. Never feeling content. Although, she had mostly reconciled with the fear. Originally, the wolves prowling around the outside of her house, had terrified her. that one day they were going to get in and gobble her up. But… what would be the harm in that?_

 _Emma didn't understand why people were scared of dying. Because when you're dead, you're dead. Why worry about it? There was no point being scared of it, because when it had happened, she wouldn't have anything to be scared of. So, it didn't bother her, and the thought of death was something she was resilient to._

 _Meanwhile, perhaps her very existence was something to be scared of. It was living that was going to bring the bad things, the certainty of tomorrow that brought with it the potential of terror. And that was why she hated it, and desired something more. That was why she needed more than this._

 _But her heart sunk, when Emma turned back to the dark corridors of that house, and saw the Doctor. Because tomorrow was going to creep around, and she'd still be stuck there, enduring this insane torment of an existence._

 _She just wanted it to stop._


End file.
